Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. - Mark 12:30 Loving God is the first and greatest commandment that God requires from man. Yet man has sinned and broke his loving relationship with God. Since the fall of mankind, man is no longer able to love God as he ought to. He replaced Gods true image with his own idols, his heart itself is a factory of idols. But God made a way to bring man back to His love. John 3:16 tells us that because of Gods great love, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ in order to die as a substitute for our sins. Jesus is the only way for us to be reconciled and restore our right relationship with God. Although man cannot in his sinful nature love God, through accepting Jesus into his heart as personal Lord and Savior, mans heart is changed by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. By faith in Jesus, our callous, stony and dead heart is changed into a living heart. We become born again by the power of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 5:17) and become Gods children, now able to love God again. Once a someone becomes a a True Christian, he is now able to fulfill Gods greatest command. And it is his lifes calling and challenge to keep it. To love the Lord our God with all our HEART, MIND, SOUL and STRENGTH is our obligation. WITH ALL OUR MIND MIND Romans 12:2 Tells us that we are not to be influenced by the lies and deceits of the world but be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We would not have understood the gospel if it were not for our minds. When we understood the good news of salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ, it started in us a change of mind. We can now distinguish the wrong from the right, Satans lies from Gods Truth, Sin/Evil from the good. Our minds were opened to the truth that only Jesus is the way to salvation. But it doesnt stop there. As much as Gods truths are inexhaustible, so we need to let the bible saturate and guide our thoughts or else we will be deceived by Satan. My cousin who was deceived by mormonism, told us that He cannot leave his cultic religion because it is only the religion where he felt accepted and not condemned. But truth hurts and it is only when you embrace the truth that you will be free. We need to have sound and biblical doctrine in order for us to prove our Love and loyalty to God. That is why cults can never love God because as long as your doctrine is twisted, you are also declaring war and hatred against God. We cannot love God while holding on to wrong and twisted principles of the world. But we love Him if we are willing to submit to His truth. WITH ALL OUR HEART Cults and false teachers are so good in playing with peoples emotions. Our emotions can be conditioned in a way that we no longer know how to rationalize things. Misguided affection/emotion can be very dangerous. This only shows how wicked our hearts are. People get brainwashed and deceived because deceivers displace their affections. God made our hearts to love Him alone. We also need to feel deep affection and personal intimacy with God. A hunger in our heart to know God more. We are not far from God. In fact His Holy Spirit lives within us permanently since we trusted Christ as Lord and Savior. But it is up to us if we will allow God more to work and change us. We have to decide whether to let God be the center and master of our lives or shall we allow the things of the world, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes and boastful pride of life take our love away for God. We should not lose our first love. We should not be lukewarm in our love for God. Instead, we should have a burning desire to love God more. WITH ALL OUR STRENGTH Loving God is very practical. When you already know the truth, you will then love and be convinced of it emotionally, then, you will act upon what you know and feel that is right. You will then serve the master whom you love. So if you Love God, Hes the only one you will desire to serve and nothing else. Your effort and strength should be exerted for God alone. God is worthy to be offered our lives as living sacrifices. Our actions and deed should manifest that God is the only one we love the most. You cannot feel and know that you love God without taking action on it. You have to prove your love for God by your obedience to His conviction and commands. AMEN Let us love God as we ought to. We can only do this if truly have a personal relationship with God. You cannot love someone you do not personally know. So you need to first accept Jesus into your heart as Lord and Savior. Then, the Holy Spirit will dwell in your heart forever, and enable you to LOVE GOD with all that you are.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 01:54:12 +0000