“We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).
What a simple but beautiful verse. I love its simplicity and it is so deep on so many levels. His deep love for us is a wonderful thing. I ponder the bible and the stories of Him, the teachings He gave us, and the love He gave us through his sacrifice. How can we not love Him for all He did and all He gave for us? This verse makes my heart swell up and makes me proclaim, “Yes, I am yours!”
The love for Christ is so much deeper than the love for anyone else. He is our Savior, our first love. No person, wife, child, friend, or family member should be before our love for Christ. The love for Christ is on a whole different level than the love for our friends and family. Spiritually, He is our first love and for me at least, my only true love and I can’t wait until I meet Him in heaven.
Love for Christ is an inward and everlasting testament to our hearts and souls that we are His. He is the Almighty and Great I Am that makes us His forever and ever. I’m trying to put into words the feelings of love I have for Christ, but I can’t find words. Words are not enough to express the complete and overwhelming love for Christ that I have in my heart.
I feel so much joy and happiness knowing that I am His and He is with me. The thought of not me being His is a scary thought and knowing that I missed out on Him for over 30 years is time lost that I can never recover pains me greatly. I’m doing my best to make up for time lost.
“Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him,” (John 14:23).
When you love someone, like your spouse, you will want to take care of the relationship and grow it and let it bloom every day. You want to support your spouse with care day in and day out. You don’t one day love you spouse and then the next day stop. It is a constant and evolving love together. It is the same with Christ.
When we love Him we are in a mutual relationship with Him. Our relationship, together, will grow and grow until it finally blooms into that deep love of Christ he wants from us and we with Him.
If we love Him, we will want to keep His words. We will want to please Him and it turns into a loving cycle of love of us loving Him and Him loving us. His love for us is greater than we could ever imagine. What Christ wants from us is love toward Him, an everlasting love like He has toward us. He is waiting for you to reach out to Him and grab hold of Him like a grandmother hold’s her grandchild: with warmth, caring, and tender unending love.
Also notice what this verse says? It is talking about being home in heaven. Can you just imagine the love we will feel in heaven? I imagine it is so much more than we can comprehend. We will be surrounded everywhere and everyway with love. It’s hard to comprehend this kind of love for the world we live in is so horrible, but we will get to know that love.
“And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely,” (Revelation 22:17).
When you are Christ’s and you hear him beckon you and you thirst for His love more and more, you are freely allowed to get as much of Christ as you can get. Our life should be all for Him for we are His. This comes at a small price: that we surrender ourselves to Him. We must lift Him up in our daily lives, everyday, every moment we live.
We must always be thirsty for Him and His love for us. We must lift our hearts to Him and give all of ourselves to Him. His love is there for us to partake in, we just need to give ourselves to Him.
Open your heart to Him and He won’t fail you. Open your heart to Him and you won’t fail Him. You will be His and He will be yours. Believe this my friends. Christ won’t ever fail you nor abandon you. Even in the moments of silence, when you may think you are alone, you are not.
What you don’t see is Christ working in the background of your life and heart, working and shaping you into the child He needs and wants you to be. He is always there is never takes a break in taking care of you.
With trust in Christ, His love will always find a way for us to overcome what we are going through. We are not alone. We are cared for more than we can imagine. And if we are cared for this much, how can we not trust the God of the universe to take care of us, even in trying times, He is there for us.
He is never on break, never sleeps, but is always working in your heart to bring us closer to Him.
“He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked” (1 John 2:6).
Did you ever consider Christ as your mentor? He is. He is the image we should strive for in our lives. When we look into the mirror, we should see Him in us. We are His children and are saved and set free from this sinful world. Because of this, we need to emulate what He did. What did He do? He loved. He loved so much for all people. We too need to have that love in our hearts as Christ did.
We are free to do what we will, but if we have Christ in our hearts, then we should walk as he walked and love as he loved. As followers of Christ we are charged with this. We are charged to love our neighbors as Christ told us to .
I don’t recall in the Bible anytime Christ turned someone away or turned His back on them. He did this because He loved. If we are His, we should do this too. Let Christ lead you to do as He did. Christ doesn’t want us to be closet Christians but wants us to be proud and loud about our faith in Him. He is the light of the world and we need to emulate this with all we come into contact with.
We do this by love and a loving attitude. You can’t be in a sour attitude and love at the same time. The two can’t fit into the same space. You can either have love in the space or no love in the space. We sometimes take love out of the space and replace it with anger, pride, hate, disdain, etc.
Instead push those thoughts and feelings out of that space in your heart and let your love shine. Let your light be blinding to others, regardless of what the situation is.
“And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God,” (Ephesians 3:19).
We can’t comprehend the love of Christ for us but we can be filled with the fullness of His love. Remember God is love and it is never ending. He created us and gave us the opportunity to choose between Him and the world: of accepting Christ as our savior or to choose Satan.
When we are full of God, Satan can’t touch us. If we let Satan touch us, it was because we let our guard down and let him in. God will never tempt you. You tempt yourselves when you lose focus on your true love: Christ.
I want so bad to know the full love that Christ has for me. This verse says it is beyond my comprehension. So when I imagine it, it is many, many times more than I could even fathom. I just can’t wait to feel that love and know it in my heart. What an awesome thing this will be when it finally happens.
“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him,” (1 John 4:16).
To lukewarm Christians and the unsaved, you truly are missing out on this great thing: having God in you. Once you get saved, you are in God’s love. But you just can’t get saved and then stay in first gear, you have to speed up and keep moving forward. Don’t sit on the fence of salvation. Salvation is freely given, you just have to ask for it.
For the lukewarm Christians out there, do something for God, for love. What has God put on your heart to do for Him to further His kingdom? I’m pretty sure that it isn’t just going to church on Sunday’s or just Christmas and Easter. You have to work for Jesus, not to earn your way into heaven for dead works will get you now where with Him.
God has a plan for each and every one of us. Mine is writing and sharing. Yours is what God had put on your heart. For me, it was put on my heart to write for Christ. He wants me to encourage and help through words. I never thought that I would be doing this all the time now.
The first time I wrote, it was put on my heart and I ignored it for a long time thinking I wasn’t good enough to write for Him. Then one night, I couldn’t go to sleep but had this urge to write. I tossed and turned in bed then I had a strong feeling to get up to the computer. I did and words just flowed out of my fingers. I haven’t looked back since, but instead look forward to the next thing God inspires me to write.
What is tugging at your heart to do for God? What have you been doing to help His kingdom? I’ll tell you again, it’s not going to church only. Again, God has a plan for you. You probably know what it is too, but have either resisted or ignored it like I did for some time.
Let go and follow your heart. Follow your heart for what God wants you to do for Him. Get on fire for Him in the talents and gifts He has given you.
When you do the works God wants you to do, you will truly understand what working for Him is. It is joy. It is fun. It is worthwhile. Don’t do what you think you should do but do what God wants you to do. Step out in faith and follow your heart of which the Holy Spirit will lead you to do for God.
Just remember that whatever it is God wants you to do, do it with love and He will be with you as you learn and endeavor through your path He has drawn for you in your life. Start today, not tomorrow. Don’t say I’ll start on Monday, but start now.
For the unsaved, God has a plan for you, too. In order to open that door, you must choose Christ as your Lord and Savior. You must believe in Him in your heart of hearts. If you choose Christ, you just received a golden ticket into heaven instead of hell.
The choice is yours to make and it is an eternal choice of where your soul will go. The easy choice my friends is Christ. Get yourself saved, and proclaim to Him, “I am yours!”
May peace and the love of Christ be with you all.