Nehemiah- An Exemplary Leader (Part VI)
Nehemiah’s secret to success wasn’t about chasing success itself—it was about seeking to please the Lord. He wholeheartedly followed God, and in doing so, success naturally followed him!
…
Love of God
Love Being Perfected (Part I)
Do you want to be a better lover of the Lord and of people? The scripture gives us an answer. …
Encouragement from Psalm 36
Psalm 36 is an encouraging and uplifting passage of scripture where David reminds Himself of God’s loving-kindness and faithfulness. In this passage, David also distinguishes between the acts of the wicked versus the acts of the righteous.
…
The Parable of the Prodigal Son (Part III)
The story of the Prodigal son also includes the older son who missed the blessing of being in his father’s house. Are we missing out on the blessings of being a son or a daughter of our heavenly Father!? …
The Irony of Inclusive Culture
The irony of the current inclusion culture is that it only accepts those who agree with its ideas, but if anyone disagrees with those ideas, they are excluded, dismissed, and labeled with derogatory terms. …
God and Government- Wealth & Giving
If we are going to have a healthy society, we need to stop looking to civil government for various social needs. The church and Christian people should take the lead to be a voice for the issues impacting their communities. As believers, instead of looking to civil government for all the answers, we need to become the answer! God is not against wealth and prosperity, but He wants us to be generous and to use it to help those in need. The Lord has solutions, and we need to pay attention to God’s heart in reaching the hurting, bringing hope of transformation, and show the love and the kindness of God to the lost. …
The Love of God
For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:14-21
God’s amazing creation speaks of His awesome and boundless being. Everything He has created including Heavens, the earth, and all the galaxies are expansive and beyond our human understanding. Scientists continue to discover His creation using technology and instrumentation to understand what He has put in place. One person or one scientist is not capable of understanding everything. They cannot embark on such a huge project alone, but many people over centuries have contributed to the discovery and understanding of God’s amazing creation and the laws that He has put in place.
Similarly, when we meditate on God’s love, we find that His love is vast and cannot be comprehended entirely; His love has width, length, depth, and height. The love of God is boundless and beyond the understanding of one person. His love is experienced by millions of His children over history, and we each get to have a revelation of who He is and what He intended through Jesus’ love, obedience, and sacrifice. It is this great love that Jesus commanded us to tell others about it and share the Good News of salvation! People need to know that there is a God in heaven who loves them and has made a way for freedom from death, darkness, and slavery to sin for every person on this earth!
Humanity is in desperate need of God’s love. As His children, we also are in desperate need of the love of the Lord to settle our hearts and keep us secure in an insecure world! That’s why our relationship with God has to have a continual intimacy. It is not because we are trying to be religious, but we are in need of God’s love to refill our hearts and to be rooted and grounded in His love. This allows us to go out to the world full of His love and not seek others’ approval or pat on the back to live a full and Godly life!
The Lord is calling us to meditate on His love and to rest in Him. This is a song that kept coming to my heart in the last few days. Feel free to use it in your time of worship and meditation.
Love the Lord Your God (Part IV)
But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. Matthew 22:34-40
Jesus’ great commandment seems simple until we start dissecting the different aspects of what He commanded us. In the last devotionals, I shared about the importance of loving God with a pure heart and a soul that is submitted under the direction of the Holy Spirit. In this devotional, I will share about loving God with all our minds.
Many times, our minds are the entry points for all kinds of temptations, anxiety, derailment, and sin. What we entertain in our minds eventually produces fruit of its kind. We may think that our thoughts are hidden from people, but what we allow to be sown in our minds, will eventually show up in the fruit that it produces in our attitudes, reactions, and behaviors.
From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day. Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!” But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.” Matthew 16:23
When Jesus told His disciples about His suffering, death, and resurrection, Peter did not like what he heard! Peter loved Jesus immensely and did not want to see Jesus harmed, but his protest about Jesus’ fate was not welcomed by Jesus! To the contrary, Jesus told him that Peter was offensive and that his mind was not focused on the things of God rather than on the things of men.
Jesus had picked Peter and the other disciples for God’s purpose. His intention was not to be their best friend or to just do life together. He was training and equipping them to take over the ministry after His sacrifice on the cross. However, Peter was being carnal at this point, and the only thing he could think about was not losing the one he loved. In contrast, Jesus loved them all, but He did not allow His love for His disciples to derail him from His mission! His mind was made up about fulfilling God’s purpose even if it meant leaving His disciples!
For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Romans 8:6
In life, we can develop many loves and treasures, but we need to be careful in not allowing them to lead us into carnality. One of the symptoms of carnal-mindedness is losing peace. When we try to figure things out in our own strength and go outside of the boundary of what God has asked us to do, we begin to fret, strive, and worry.
A mind that is submitted to the Lord always looks to the Lord for answers and does not try to fill in the blank out of fear and insecurity. Whenever we think that we have to conjure up a plan to keep control of the situation, our mind becomes carnally minded and produces evil fruit!
The scripture (See Philippians 4:8) tells us to meditate on things that are true, just, noble, pure, lovely, and of good report. That’s the atmosphere of faith. It opens the door for God to be involved in our lives. Those are the characteristics of our heavenly Father who sends us His goodness and lavishes us with peace and security.
Interestingly, as I was writing this, I was challenged by a situation. I found myself getting anxious. So I asked my heavenly Father to help me. He showed me in the areas that it is not my responsibility to do anything about, through prayer I need to release the situation in the Lord’s hands. In faith, I need to believe what is good and praiseworthy! This is not easy because we want to be in control, and we certainly want a good outcome. We have a choice to make. We can either be led by the spirit, which is life and peace or be led by our flesh and our carnal thoughts, which is control and turmoil.
How are you doing with loving God with all your mind? Do you have a busy mind? Are you always trying to figure things out? Do you feel like you have to have a plan B and C in place just in case your plan A doesn’t work out? Are you able to still your mind and just rest in the Lord? Can you surrender all your questions, striving, and worries at the cross and declare that God is in control? He will show us if/when we need to do something. In the meantime, we can enjoy loving Him and resting in Him.
Image by Daniel Reche from Pixabay
Love the Lord Your God (Part II)
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:5
But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:34-40
Jesus answered a Pharisee by stating that the first commandment is to love the Lord with all our hearts, with all our souls, and all our minds. We may not pay much attention to this commandment because we have heard it many times! So it’s important to slow down, think about the different elements of this commandment, and what they mean to us!
First, what does it look like to love the Lord with all our hearts!?
Let not mercy and truth forsake you; Bind them around your neck, Write them on the tablet of your heart, Proverbs 3:3
God desires for us to be full of mercy and truth. He wants us to write mercy and truth on the tablet of our hearts. That means that we need to be continually aware of God’s mercy towards us and just as the Lord has been merciful to us, we also need to be merciful to others. This is a reminder of the Lord’s prayer when Jesus prayed in Matthew 6:12, “forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Those who have received the love and the forgiveness of the Lord have the responsibility to bless others with mercy and forgiveness as God has forgiven us.
Furthermore, God wants us to write truth on our hearts. We need to spend time knowing God’s truth, meditating on it, and keeping it in our hearts. His truth keeps us anchored and helps us to stay on the narrow path. Our heart is the place where we keep those things that are dear to us. Are His truth and mercy dear and valuable to us!?
Furthermore, in John 1:14, the scripture tells us that Jesus came “full of grace and truth.” When we live and walk in truth and mercy, we represent the Lord Jesus and who He is to the world!
Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life. Proverbs 4:23
In addition to keeping God’s mercy and truth in our hearts, we also need to protect our hearts from all others desires, distractions, and pollutions. The issues of life are varied. We have many temptations coming at us causing us to think that there are more important things to devote our time and attention to. There are also many trends that try to influence our choices to be popular and relevant, and they attempt to derail us from God’s desires and priorities.
Sometimes, the issues of life could be just dealing appropriately with people and not allowing our hearts to grow bitter or cold towards others because they have failed to meet our expectations. It’s hard to love others and not be disappointed when they fail us. However, the scripture tells us to guard our hearts with all diligence. That tells me that it is not easy to protect our hearts, and it requires work, intentionality, and attention.
If we want to remain in a place where God has the first place in our hearts, it is like a person who decides to get married. When we make the decision and the covenant to get married, in effect we are saying that my heart belongs to my spouse, and it is guarded and protected from falling in love with any other person! Similarly, if our hearts are dedicated to the Lord, then we cannot allow other loves to come into our hearts and pollute us from our first commitment. We need to put a seal on our hearts that other desires will not be allowed.
Lord, our hearts belong to you! Show us if we we have anything in our hearts that has taken your place or it has crowded or polluted our hearts. We want to have a clean heart before you. Teach us to guard it. Help us to keep mercy and truth in our hearts and to represent you well to a lost world! Amen!
Image by Igor Schubin from Pixabay
Love the Lord Your God (Part I)
We love Him because He first loved us. 1John 4:19
God in His mercy reached out to us first and showed us that He loves us and cares about us! It is His transforming love that opens our hearts to love him back. Our love relationship with the Lord did not originate with us, and neither did our good works brought it about. God initiated the relationship. Jesus, His only begotten son, came to show us the love and the commitment of the Father to a lost world!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. Deuteronomy 6:5
But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:34-40
Jesus was the personification of the love of the Father, and His great sacrifice declared God’s great love towards us! He came to show us and teach us God’s ways. Interestingly, when a Pharisee asked Jesus about the greatest commandment, Jesus did not give him any new information, and neither did He give him a new law! Although, the Pharisee was trying to trap Jesus in saying something that was against the law, Jesus responded with the very words of God from Deuteronomy!
In reality, God had required His people to love Him from the beginning, but they tried to keep the law without having a heart to surrender themselves to the Lord. They were comfortable doing their religious duties apart from a relationship. As a matter of fact, they created additional rules to ensure that people were following every minute detail lest they sin in the absence of concrete information!
Obviously, apart from Christ, they would not have been able to develop an intimate relationship with God. Nevertheless, many of them were blinded with their works thinking that God was impressed with their sacrificial obedience of the law! However, in reality, they were not seeking the heart and the mind of the Lord concerning their spiritual state. The religious people were too busy impressing themselves and others that they could not admit the hollowness of their activities. On the other hand, it was the down and out, the sick, and the sinners who were hungry and thirsty for spiritual matters, and they were not afraid of admitting it and searching for the truth.
Similarly, we may also think that as long as we keep the law, we are doing what God is asking us. It’s so easy to fall into that trap. In addition, many times the people around us measure our love for God by our activities, which makes it difficult for us to be focused on our relationship with the Lord. However, there is more to loving God than just obeying the rules. I will continue with this subject in the next devotional.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay