In Love With God - lesson 6

In Love With God - lesson 6

The only thing that I want for this semester 

is for us to be in love with and on fire for God

     Today I had an interesting thought. I was praying, “Jesus help me to respond with Your heart.” And I was thinking, I only know the words You would say in this situation but I don’t know how to have the depth of their meaning in my heart. This brought to my attention my little niece who is learning to talk right now. She learns the words but doesn’t really know what they actually mean. She can say, “I love you” and it melts my heart even though I know she doesn’t really understand the words. I was thinking, “We can read Jesus’ words and repeat them in the appropriate situations and it probably melts God’s heart to even though He to knows that we don’t fully understand them, but His heart is glad that we desire to copy His words, and repeat them after Him. He is glad that we desire to copy Him as He slowly brings us into the fullness of their meaning as we grow in Him. My niece knows  that you give a hug and say I love you so she even knows the appropriate place to use the words. We to can use Jesus’ words in the appropriate places and pray that He grows us up on the inside so that our heart matches with the words and the occasion.

     This is just a neat example of how even trying to begin to be like Jesus when we know that we are probably not fully understanding what we are trying to do for Him, is still the best way we can go forward. So when the devil comes to accuse us that we are hypocrites and our lives don’t match our words, or when he says that we aren’t good enough to help others, we can step back and say, “Jesus please grow me up soon, and in the mean time I want to do what You do and say what You say even though I don’t fully understand. You are my roll model and I want to be just like You when I grow up.” I’m quite sure that saying that one sentence will melt God’s heart and cover a multitude of failures.  :)

     God is calling us into a close relationship with Himself and this is just one more of the hindrances that we can overcome with the simple key of loving the Lord with all our heart. That key will unlock every door that will ever try to stand in the way of our Christian walk and gives us the ability to cross every barrier we will ever face. To love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, is the foundation stone from which everything else builds off of and without it everything that tries to be built on our lives, will have to be torn down because it will not stand the test of time and trial. Loving the Lord with all our heart is such a simple statement but it is the hard won victory that must take place in order for our lives to move forward as fast as possible in the right direction.

     Let us press forward into the Lord our God with all earnestness today! He is worth it!

-Seth

Waiting upon the Lord

John 20:29

Waiting upon the Lord

     Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

     It is a step of faith that Jesus calls us to. Jesus is speaking to Thomas – one of his disciples who spoke out to the others that he would not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead unless he was able to see Him in person and put his fingers into Jesus’ wounds. Jesus says to him, “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

     Jesus will often come to our aid in a very visible way and yet there are many times when we are enduring some hardship or period of waiting for something which we have asked Him for and we start to doubt that He will come to our rescue or answer our prayers. We start to doubt even though we have many witnesses to the contrary. We have so many proofs of His faithfulness to keep His promises to us and yet sometimes we are like Thomas and declare that unless we see proof we will not believe that He will do as He said. Jesus words, “Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed,” is His promise of blessing for us if we hold fast to His promises no matter what things look like. He will come through and take care of whatever it is that we have asked Him for.

     So how does this translate into our everyday walk with God? Well, quite simple really. The Devil is always trying to offer us things that we don’t have to wait for or don’t seem to require any pain to achieve, things that we can have right now if we are willing to overstep a few of God’s laws. He often stirs up our hearts so that there seems to be no other alternative than to do things his way. He likes to fill us with such passion that we refuse to look at the consequences of our actions and do things in the heat of the moment that will cause us a lifetime of misery. God on the other hand, desires for us to have what is truly good for us and part of this is working on our character so that we will not waste what He gives to us, but will make the best use of it. So He allows delays to test us and to work patience and trust in us. God has our eternity in mind when He takes care of us and He is constantly working to conform our character into His image. We are His children forever and so He takes great pains with us to set our lives on a good foundation.

     So how do we hold onto the truth of these things when we are in the midst of a temptation or trial? It seems like it is just too hard to remember when we are fighting with a desire or test and we are contending with our weak nature. The answer is to hold onto God’s love for us and to not be afraid to cry out loud for His help to overcome what we are struggling with. If we cry out, He will refresh our spirit and renew our confidence, and give us a fresh wind to go forth and endure until He has finished all that He is accomplishing in our lives.

     So let us keep eternity in our hearts, and God’s love for us and our love for Him, continually on our minds. A good verse to dwell on is Proverbs 16:17. “The highway of the upright is to depart from evil; He who watches his way preserves his life.” 

          God bless!