One of my major thoughts lately has focused on loving God more. It's been a good ride as it has kept me centered and helped capture worldly thoughts. I'm still not sure I understand how to love God more - I'm just trying to be more aware of Him, live in His presence, and talk to Him more. Isn't that what love is all about - conversation and communion with another person?
The real surprise that I sense is the growing love I have for others. I feel like my love for others is growing deeper and broader. Real love makes you a servant. Real love removes lust and allows you to enjoy others for all the right reasons. There's a unique freedom in this love that I can't put into words yet. Do you know what I'm talking about? Perhaps you can help me define it and communicate it.
Anyway, this morning I read in my Spurgeon devotional from Ezekiel 36:26 - "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."
A heart of flesh is not carnal but tender, grieves at personal sin, and desires to love God more. "The hard heart does not love the Redeemer, but the renewed heart burns with affection toward Him... This renewed heart is prepared to receive every spiritual blessing and every blessing comes to it. It will yield every heavenly fruit to the honor and praise of God..."
Pray that we may love God more and see a surprising love for others broaden.
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Prayer today...James Chapter 4, particularly these verses...
6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
"God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble."
7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you.
It is comforting to know that if you resis the devil, he flees. But seek God and there He is, near! Who could ask for more!
I pray for you, and I, and all our church; that we could love God more and see “surprising love” for others increase. Your well put thoughts on this sent me to 1 John 4:7-8 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love”. There might not be truth in my experiences, but it makes me glad when my experiences line up with truth! So these verses are in my prayers for you this week as well, as well as His blessings on you.
I've been thinking a lot and praying for you on what you've had to say about loving God more. My Chambers devotional today speaks to this (for me) by emphasizing the opposition of faith and common sense. Chambers says “they stand in the relation of the natural and the spiritual” and asks me “Can you trust Jesus Christ where your common sense cannot trust Him? Can you venture heroically on Jesus Christ's statements when the facts of your common-sense life shout - "It's a lie?"”.
So I make these thoughts the conclusion of my weekly prayer for you: that you can “love God more” through a faith that sets aside what is “common sense”. That you can “love God more” by living dangerously in His name! I pray this for the both of us, and I pray his blessing on you.
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