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

With praise and thanksgiving!

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” 1 Thes 5:16-18

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Phil 4:4-7

God wants us to “rejoice always”, “give thanks in all circumstances” and “with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”.  It sounds so simple, but when we find ourselves in a desperate place of hopelessness, sadness or discouragement the last thing we feel like is praising and thanking God. Especially if you have been waiting and waiting for God to change your situation, to provide or to restore and you are not seeing any change.

I don’t know about you, but I have found this to be very challenging over the years. I don’t like pretending and I don’t like thanking and praising God in a fake way just because I’m supposed to. I want to thank Him from my heart in truth and love, but still the Bible tells me to “rejoice always” and “with thanksgiving”. So how do I do this without being fake?

My search has led me to the word “faith” and the definition of faith. Faith is knowing that you already have what you have asked for and faith comes from hearing the Bible. I looked for scriptures in the Bible to strengthen my faith and I started from there. I would find verses that tell me who God is and that He is faithful and I then thank Him because He is faithful, kind, gracious and in control. I thank Him for who He is and praise Him because He is God.

Then I look at scriptures which directly relate to my situation and I thank God for what He has already promised me. I allow them to give me hope and by the Spirit my faith grows and I start climbing the mountain, even if it is just with a small thanks. As we build our foundation on God and on who He is, the mountain becomes smaller and we become taller and we reach a point where we can look over the mountain and receive vision. We see God’s plans fulfilled and our needs met and we receive the peace of God which transcends all understanding.

Our mountain has not yet been moved but, we have already received the victory and we can walk out the last stretch with peace and joy, thanking Him for what we are about to receive. God knows that praise and thanksgiving focus our attention on Him and not on our circumstances, break the chains of despair and give us strength to persevere to the end.

“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s bonds were unfastened.” Acts 16:25-26

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

“No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” Rom 8:38