Archive for October, 2010

10-25-10

Jesus said, “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.” (Mt. 22:36-40)

People who love Jesus will love others much more. It is impossible to love Jesus and not love people more. The greatest anointing of the Spirit is to walk in the two great commandments by loving Jesus with all our heart and our neighbor as ourselves.

Love for others, like loving God, flows from regularly encountering God’s love for us. “We love Him because He first loved us.”(I Jn. 4:19) To walk in genuine love as defined by God is much more than sentimentalism. It takes seeking to love Jesus with “all” our heart, mind, soul, and strength. To walk in love requires the Spirit’s power to energize us; we regularly need our emotions stirred and strengthened by the subtle impressions of the Spirit. “The love of God has been poured in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” (Rom. 5:5)

Only by loving Jesus and ourselves are we able to consistently overflow in love for others. We must love God first and ourselves to have power and energy to properly love our neighbor. We can only love our neighbor in the overflow of loving God, for only in being loved by God and in loving God can we properly love others.

“But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. (Luke 6:27-28,32-33) This demanding commandment requires a comprehensive re-ordering of how we think and process life. We by nature are self-consumed, so it takes the power of the Spirit to walk this out.

We are not called to love others “instead of” ourselves but “as” ourselves by using the same standard in measuring love for others as we use for ourselves. We are to seek our neighbors’ benefit “with the same focus and energy,” as that we seek for ourselves.

To love others as ourselves is to value their longing for significance, acceptance, and success as being as important as our own. Because all people are created in God’s image, they deserve to receive love from us just as we receive love from God.

We are not to dismiss loving ourselves, but we enhance it by loving others with new depth. We will experience God’s tender compassion as we show it to others. Loving others is the greatest work of the Spirit and it’s the ultimate proof of His work
in the human heart. As we love God and ourselves, we overflow in love for others. It is the visible measurement of our invisible love for God.

Blessings,

Gary

10-19-10

“If you love me, keep my commandments… He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me… If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word.
(Jn. 14:15-23).

Jesus defined loving God as being deeply rooted obedience. There is no such thing as loving God without seeking to obey His word. Love requires the wholehearted pursuit of obedience in both our attitudes and actions.

Each of us has a different struggle according to our personality and circumstances. Thus, we each have a different assignment from which we offer our gift of love to God. Saying “no” to sin gives us an opportunity to express our love to God. What God wants most is our response of love that is shown in seeking to obey His Word. Jesus wants love from us that allows Him to take total control of our lives to protect us and glorify us in His love as our place of greatness.

“You are worthy…for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and nation.” (Rev. 5:9) Adoration and gratitude to Jesus for His greatness and kindness is essential to love. With awestruck, grateful love, we adore Jesus and trust His wisdom, humility and power. He is the most deserving and capable Person to rule our life and the whole earth. We often take the wealth of God’s kindness so lightly. “Or do you despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance?” (Rom. 2:4) Love grows as we are moved by the truth of Jesus’ greatness and by gratitude in seeing the whole story of how He is treating us.

True love expresses loyalty to God’s Word instead of yielding to the fear of man. Love for God is loyalty to His truth as seen in Jesus. Our love must be expressed in alliance with Jesus of the Bible, not the Jesus of humanist sentiment. The Holy Spirit will glorify and exalt Jesus by guiding us into all truth about Him. There are three truths about Jesus we must hold firm to in defining who Jesus is and how we love Him. First, is His deity – His right to establish absolute standards for which the nations are accountable to Him. Second, the only way of salvation is through Jesus. Thirdly, He possess the wisdom and love to judge sin in time and eternity.

Finally, love is not passive but includes burning desire. We seek to love Jesus more than anything else. “For the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Ex.34:14) The God who has everything wants us because He is love. He wants to take over our life and to consume us from the inside out as He determines our destiny and establishes our eternal greatness and joy. “Take up your cross and follow Me. Leave it all behind. Say goodbye to houses and lands for My sake.” This is the voice of a Bridegroom who gave all for the sake of love, as one who laid down His life for His friends, who loves us with all His heart, soul, mind and strength, and wants a people yoked to Him in this kind of love.

Blessings,

Gary

10-11-10

“My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; Yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, and if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God” (Prov. 2:1-5)

“If you receive my words…” That’s a spirit of obedience. In other words, it’s the opposite of rejecting His words. You don’t receive His words because you believe them; you receive His words because you commit to agree with then in your lifestyle. If His finger is on you in an area, and if you don’t respond, you are not receiving His words for you, you are resisting it. And, prayer is no substitute for obedience, meaning you can’t live in deliberate disobedience and add more prayer time and throw in a fasting day and hope it all sorts itself out. No, you need to accept His words and then live a life obedient to them.

“Treasure His words,” means to meditate on them. We treasure the words and make them dear to us by turning the Word of God into a dialogue with God. We agree with His word, we ask for more insight and we commit to respond and ask for help.

Incline your ear to wisdom, apply your heart to understanding is to have a teachable spirit and open heart. When we are reading the Word, we cannot approach it with a bias as to its meaning. We have to apply our heart to what we read and come under the discipline of the Word, and not resist its meaning to justify what we want it to mean. I lay down my bias and what I want it to mean and accept what it does mean. I cry out for understanding and ask the Lord to give me more insight and revelation.

“Search for it as hidden treasure.” Search for it; pursue it diligently. It is not enough to “kind of” get the information. We have to search for it as hidden treasure which will take some rigorous effort to attain. It is within reach, but it is not easy to get, because the Lord only wants to give deeper things of His heart to the people who cannot live without them. He gives salvation for free, but He gives the deep things of His heart to the people who hunger and search for them.

Proverbs 25:2 says, “The glory of God is to conceal” – or hide- “a matter; the glory of a king is to search it out.” God says, “It is my glory to hide the deep things. It is a kingly spirit to come after Me. When I hide Myself, love comes to the surface and the seeker who comes after Me can’t take no for an answer.” So if you have said, “Lord, you are hiding yourself”, the Lord might say, “It is my glory to do this but it is your glory to search it out because here I am.”

If you do this you will discover the knowledge of God. Let’s not give up. Let’s not draw back based on how we feel or how well we are doing. Let’s stay committed to diligently seek after the hidden treasure of the knowledge of God.

Blessings,

Gary

10-4-10

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion (fellowship) of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (II Cor. 13:14) In seeking God there are two ways we can focus our mind. First, focus on God on His throne (Rev. 4) and secondly, God in our spirit. The Spirit flows from our heart and so we turn our attention of our soul to the Spirit in our spirit to grow in the deep things of God. “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” (Jn. 7:38)

To fellowship with the Holy Spirit means we talk to Him as we give our heart to Him. It also means we hear back from Him in a two way dialogue. The Holy Spirit will honor our part by not forcing us to dialogue with Him in conversation or friendship if we are not hungry for it. Love requires a voluntary response.

The Holy Spirit ministers in us as a bright light that drives darkness out and overpowers the darkness of confusion, accusation and rejection (Jn. 1:5) He is also a consuming fire that devours everything that gets in the way, like bitterness and addictions. He also ministers in us as a flowing river that connects our heart with the movement of God’s heart (Jn. 7:37-39).

“Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me.” (Ps. 131:2) An act of our will is to calm and quiet our soul as we seek to commune with the Holy Spirit. We quiet our souls to connect with the Spirit’s whisper in our heart.

Here are five practical phrases you can use in talking with the indwelling Spirit during your quiet time. First, tell Him ‘Thank you.’ Pray, “Thank you Holy Spirit for your bright presence in me. I love Your presence. Apart from connecting with You, I can do nothing that effectively renews my love, sustains my zeal for righteousness, and releases revelation and power in my heart.

Next, ask the Spirit to release abundant revelation of God’s heart, word and purposes for you. (Eph. 1:17) “may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.”

Ask the Spirit to use you more and more in the spiritual gifts to minister to others. That He would release the manifestation of your gifts and power to help others. Also, ask Him to strengthen you, your mind, emotions and speech. His power is already in us (Gal. 5:22-23) therefore, pray, “Thank you for the presence of Your love, peace, patience, and self-control in me. Give me the strength to effectively use these gifts to minister to others.’

Finally, ask the Spirit to teach you about God’s will and ways that He may manifest His leadership in every issue in your life, your relationships, job and ministry. “Pray, Spirit, I love you Your will and ways, therefore, manifest your leadership in me.” He will give us new ideas, order our steps and open doors of opportunity in each area of our lives as we ask Him.

Blessings,

Gary