The power of love

What do you think when I tell you: “God loves you”? Maybe you know His love well, maybe you don’t care or will just brush me off by saying: “whatever”. In some way the phrase “God loves you” has become such a cliché and so easily said and I wonder how many people truly know that God loves them incredibly much and experience His love? I was at a wedding this weekend and the person speaking mentioned that the wife is God’s vessel through which He can tangibly show her husband how much He loves him and vice versa. There is no other relationship where love can be demonstrated so intimately, in so many ways and on so many levels than in marriage. A wife lifts up her husband by loving him the way God loves him and the husband lifts up the wife by loving her the way God loves her.

No wonder Jesus calls the church His bride. His people are destined to live in an intimate relationship of love with Him. There is so incredibly much power in the love of God and nothing can stand against it. I love that the Bible says: “Perfect love casts out all fear.” and we have the perfect love inside of us. I wonder how our lives will look when we truly, truly grasp this wonderful truth. We cannot comprehend how much God loves us. It’s not just a little love, it’s a BIG love and everything He does demonstrates His love for you. You get to know Him by His love. It is who He is.

“For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Eph 3:14-19

Paul says that we need to be “rooted and grounded in love” meaning rooted and grounded in God’s love. If we just begin to understand how much God loves us, we will bounce up and down every day with joy, our fears will be extinct and we will overflow with peace. Not to mention the confidence and power we will walk in. No feeling of guilt or condemnation will hold us down and no manipulating thoughts will distract us from Him. We will feel in love and light as a feather 24 hours a day and this IS possible.

As God is teaching me to walk in His love and Spirit, I feel everything around me changing. There are fewer things that try to get me down and their effects don’t last long. I feel more and more unstoppable every day, because He is in me and when He is for me, who can be against me?

We don’t live by what we feel, but by what we know and what you can ask for you can have if you believe. Everything starts with faith, because without faith we cannot please God. We need to believe He loves us whether we feel it or not. We need to believe He listens whether we feel it or not. We need to believe He speaks whether we hear Him or not and then we will start experiencing things. Then our eyes will open and we will see His love, feel His love and hear His voice.

The Bible says:

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” Matt 7:7

“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” Jer 29:13

“Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;
be gracious to me and answer me!
You have said, “Seek my face.”
My heart says to you,
“Your face, Lord, do I seek.” Psalm 27:7-8

God does not disappoint. Seek and you will find. Seek His love and you will come to know it and it will blow your mind! As it says above “the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge”, it is not something that we can understand with our minds. It is above our knowledge, it does not make sense, it is a crazy, I-did-not-do- anything- to deserve-this kind of love. It is unstoppable, unbreakable and 100% unconditional. There is nothing we can do to earn His love, all we can do is accept it and be thankful. It’s when we stop trying to earn it, when we realise that we have it all already.

Photo credit: favim

Love, love, love!

Love, love, love, love, love, I cannot say it enough! It’s just so intensely on my heart today. To love is to live. I’m referring to all kinds of love, friendship, relationship, family and neighbourly love. To love people intensely is such an amazing experience. Yes, you can get hurt sometimes and sometimes you have to say goodbye, but you are still blessed to have loved. God has put something so amazing in each person on earth and if we can see each person through God’s eyes then we would only feel love for them.

The Bible says that God is love and therefore loving is probably the greatest thing you can do. It is not always easy and sometimes it doesn’t come naturally, but if we get God’s perspective on someone our love for them will grow in our hearts, because God looks down on us with love.

“So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:16-19

Sometimes I feel as if I want to explode with love and the more time I spend with God, the more I feel loved and the more I love. God increases our capacity to love. Loving people didn’t come naturally to me before I met Jesus. I loved my friends and family, but that’s about where it stopped. I even kept my friends at a certain distance, because I felt that I was a private person and I also saw emotions as a sort of weakness. Now I can confidently say that my strength lies in my ability to love. Not with my own love, because my own love expects a return and runs dry, but with God’s love, the love which loves unconditionally without expecting returns. There is a difference between the love of God and the love of this world. Our minds cannot understand the love of God, but our hearts cannot deny it. We are drawn like a moth to a flame. When you are consumed with God’s love there is no space for jealousy, bitterness, unforgiveness, envy and strife. God’s love knows no bounds, it never ends and as the Bible says: “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.”  1 Peter 4:8 Love covers everything, it wipes the slate clean, it builds up and encourage.

That is what Jesus did for us on the cross. He died for us, because He loved us. He covered us with His love and in that separated us from sin and death and gave us life. If we struggle with negative or destructive thoughts against other people, we should not ask God to remove the thoughts, but ask Him to increase our capacity to love. He is the only one who can fill you with pure love. If you have not yet felt His pure love running through your veins, I ask you to sit with Him and ask Him to fill you with his love. Ask Him for an experience of His love. Ask Him every day until you meet Him in that place of pure love and joy. God delights in us and His desire and love is for us. Don’t settle for anything less.

“and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:5

“so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:17-21

Amazing song: Be my love

Picture credit: favim

Having the upper hand!

We want to live every day knowing that we have the upper hand over our circumstances. We can always have the upper hand, because we have the Spirit of God living inside of us. As per the scripture below, David knew that God would rescue him, because God delights in David. David knew who he was and therefore he could claim the promises of God. He had the upper hand.

“He sent from on high, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters.
He rescued me from my strong enemy
and from those who hated me,
for they were too mighty for me.
They confronted me in the day of my calamity,
but the Lord was my support.
He brought me out into a broad place;
He rescued me, because He delighted in me.” Psalm 18:16-19

The same can be said for us as we are children of God and He delights in us. I think we can often forget that He delights in us and we forget that He is always ready to support and guide us. We might not always know what He is doing, but He will “send from on high” and He will “bring me into a broad place” at the appointed time. David was confident, because he knew who God is and His character. He knew that God is the type of friend who always has your back in the battle.

The more we get to know God, the more confident we become and we build a foundation of trust on Him and His word. I think that we sometimes forget that the journey should be a joyous one, even though we walk through deep water sometimes, He will always carry us through. We do not have to doubt Him! The Bible says: “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Romans 8:37

We are more than conquerors because of what Jesus has done, not because of what we are doing. The victory is ours before we even lift a finger. It is not what we are doing, but what Jesus has done and we have to live in the truth and the reality of who we are now. The only thing that we can do is be willing, humble and listen to God’s voice. He desires a relationship, He wants to spend time with you, have fun with you and laugh with you. Be sensitive to His whispers and give Him your undivided attention when you feel Him tugging at your heart. You are one word away from the solution to whatever you are facing at the moment. Do not miss out. He will give you the strength to face every day with peace, love and heaps of joy. You have the upper hand!

Photo credit: seasidesunsets