Month: December 2021

The entirety of this blog is an attempt to call out the importance of God’s Love and why we most definitely need it.

Recently, and somewhat casually, the HolySpirit said to me: Ask Abba to love you with all He’s got. It took me a minute to process what I had just been told … even the possibility of it made my brain pause! …

… what doesALLmean for a God Who is inexhaustible!

The anticipation of it made my heart skip several beats leap!

In obedience and with sheer excitement, I asked God to love me with ALL He’s got!

Full disclosure … I was almost certain I’d explode BUT I asked anyway because I was (still am) absolutely confident that the HolySpirit will put me back together again should it happen!

Back to the topic at hand …

… with the understanding that no one can take on ALL of God, the HolySpirit assured me that He’ll help me bear it. 🥰

In Ephesians 3, Paul prayed saying …

For a long time (until maybe last year), I read this wondering why I need Strength … why do I need to be empowered to know and experience the Love of God.

This brings me to Romans 5:5– a bible verse that I’ve come to thoroughly relish!

With the revelation that (1) the HolySpirit is the Grace of God and that (2) the Grace of God is sufficient,Romans 5:5could have stopped at because God has given us the HolySpirit … but it didn’t.

Also, it could have said because God loves us – this by the way is the foundation and essence of the gospel of Christ:God does love us sooooo very much. While this is undeniably true, Romans 5:5 doesn’t say this either. John 3:16 does 🥰.

It appears then that the use of language/words in Romans 5:5 was purposefully and deliberately structured to lay emphasis on the pouring of God’s Love and the filling of our hearts with God’s Love by the HolySpirit. To mean that, in addition to being passionately loved by God, we need God’s love in us <—— THIS is primarily what I’d like to call attention to.

Having learnt that if God gives it, we most definitely need it, it is apt to say that the pouring of God’s Love in our hearts is imperative. In other words, God’s Love in our hearts is a must-have!

WHY should we make it our highest goal to have God’s Love in us?

HOW do our lives depend on it?

Let’s get the ball rolling …

The Love of God in us is God’s power at work in us and it avails much!

El Shaddai!🥰 The Inexhaustible One! The All-Sufficient One!

He IS EVERYTHING we need and infinitely MORE! He IS The MORE!

The riches of His abundance are without borders … unending and bottomless!

With Him, there is NO WHAT IF there isn’t enough to go round or enough left for me.

He IS undepletable – impossible to deplete! El Shaddai is His Name! 💖

In addition to this MORE-than-ANYTHING-you-can-DARE-to-ask-or-think blank cheque or black card,the Love of God leads to HOPE– one of the three must-haves called out in 1 Corinthians 13:13…

… because of this Love-based Hope, we are never left feeling short-changed. On the contrary, we can NOT round up enough containers to hold everything God so generously pours into our lives through the HolySpirit –Romans 5:5 (MSG).

By extension, this means that if all 7+ billion of us were to let God pour Himself (LOVE) into us … that’s 7+ billion containers … it still will NOT be enough to hold everything God wants us to have!

Here’s an outline of the connection between God’s Love and a few other must-haves.

From the above depiction, we see thatGod’s LOVE leads to PEACE which in turn leads to and is STRENGTH and COURAGE (the absence of fear).

If we pause to consider the extensive benefits of peace, strength, courage, and hope in our lives, we’ll catch a glimpse of the truth that the Love of God leads to all the must-haves we need and as such it is the greatest must-have of ALL.

Thankfully, God has made it ALL available to us …

How has God made all the must-haves (including His Love) available to us?

How does the HolySpirit pour God’s Love into our hearts?

Depicted below is anotherLove Connectionthat shows the link between LOVE (God),THE WORD OF GOD (God), andLIFE (God).

In other words, God’s Love is LIFE … this Life is the Light of all mankind. John 1:4

By telling and reminding us of God’s Word to, for, and regarding us, the HolySpirit reveals God’s heart to us and (in essence) pours God’s Love into our hearts.

How do we receive the inpouring of God’s Love into our hearts?

What does it mean to receive with humility?

From a recent personal experience, I learnt and can unreservedly say that Adam and Eve were naked yet unafraid and unashamed BECAUSE of God’s Love – they lived and basked in it. It was poured into their hearts and they received it with all humility.

How so?

BEFORE eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they did NOT know that they were naked (knowing that one is naked involves some level of self orientation). All they knew and received was God (LOVE) – this in turn cast out all fears hence, they were unafraid.

In my somewhat similar experience, I saw a side of me that was not … God-like. Thanks to the Love of God that the HolySpirit continues to pour into my heart, I heard the whisper:

“Let yourself be vulnerable with God.“

I went to God and laid my heart bare before Him. I was vulnerable – admitting my weakness and exposing it to the Light, yet I was unashamed. Like Adam and Eve (in Genesis 2:25), I was naked and exposed yet unafraid or unashamed solely because of the Love of God … a LOVE that results in a PEACE that truly is beyond all natural understanding.

Our natural understanding, which represents a form of darkness or blindness, can NOT comprehend or make sense of the Love of God (Light). Thankfully, the Word of God is the Voice of Love – the Voice that pierces through all forms of darkness.

Our natural understanding, similar to that of Adam and Eve after eating of the tree, is self-oriented and tends to fear i.e. the fear of being punished, being rejected, or any number of WHAT-IFs … it also results in fear-based responses or actions including being fearfully responsible – SeLaH.

Nevertheless, the Love of God encourages us to BELIEVE and NOT give in to fear.

Believing God is a practical example of receiving with humility.

ONLY the truth of God’s Love for and in us can utterly dispel all fears and fear-based responses. It’s a LOVE that choses MERCYover (and in) judgement.

It’s a LOVE that says: Let ME love you

In other words, “Let ME in and I will show you ME. To know ME is to know LOVE“

The Love of God in us is God’s action in us. His action in us is what leads to actively and interactively knowing Him <——THIS is LIFE …

… a Life that can ONLY be experienced by knowing Him (God, LOVE) personally.

God wants us to have and enjoy Him (Life) hence the outpouring of His Love – better put, the outpouring of Himself (Love) – into our hearts.

For everyone who is willing, you wanting to let God’s Love in your heart is evidence that God put the desire there. This reinforces the truth that He wants you to have and enjoy Him (Love, Life).

In alignment with God’s heart, I echo Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:19that you come to know the Love of God personally and that you become fully filled with Love (God).

In other words, I pray that you become God-FULL … Love-FULL … FULL of Life!

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I’ll wrap up this 3-part series with two additional lessons learned from the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

First … a quick recount from Part 1 and Part 2.

The truth is: they died!

They were still breathing, talking, moving around …

… dead nonetheless. Think of it as a case ofThe Walking Dead.

Lessons Learned #9: Our human (natural) mechanisms can NOT accurately comprehend the Ways and Word of God be it written, spoken, or personified.

When God said  the day that you eat from it, you most certainly will die … it is natural to think of this from the perspective of physical death.

Beyond the physical death is a form of death that I (still) can’t accurately describe, but I deduce that it is terrible solely based on the truth that God does NOT want us to experience the full extent of it – John 3:16-17 reveals this truth and God’s heart.

Without the HolySpirit, we can NOT accurately make sense of the Word of God, much less translate it appropriately. Case in point: John 3:1-10 …

Jesus was talking to a renowned expert/teacher (Nicodemus) about being born again. Nicodemus’ mind could not conceive of the premise, hence his response to Jesus: how can a grown man be re-born? It’s impossible for a man to go back into the womb a second time and be re-born!

How limiting are our natural senses! What full lives we would live if we lay our simple thoughts aside …

In relation to the things of God, our natural eyes (including the eyes of our mind/understanding) are limited – they are eyes that don’t see (Mark 8:18) … they caN’T make sense of the things of God – this (in part) is why we need the HolySpirit.

Thankfully, God gives us His Spirit … without limit! –John 3:34. Jehovah Jireh in action – always providing for our needs. 🥰

Interacting with the Word of God without a HolySpirit-enabled understanding is detrimental and ill-advised. Besides, why would we? The HolySpirit – the Spirit of God – is the ONLY One Who knows the heart of God (what He means and intends).

The HolySpirit knows all the juicy secrets that God Himself joyfully wants to reveal to us per time. John 16:13 – He speaks what He hears God say. In other words, we getFirst Hand Informationwith the must-have understanding required.

This is the Way of Peace (Luke 1:79) – living by Faith (the Word of God) through Grace (the Spirit of God), and NOT by sight (our human mechanisms/wherewithal).

Lessons Learned #10: God’s Word is inescapable. If He said it, it will surely come to be.

WHEN Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, true to the Word of God, they died … we all did!

It’s important to note that, in addition to the death being one that transcends physical death, the extent of its scope applied to all of mankind. In essence, we were born dead.

Thankfully, out of the abundance of His love and mercy … and true to His nature, God came for us and redeemed us – Isaiah 53

God paid the wages of our sin (unbelief) – the unbelief which led us to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the same unbelief that has since led us to rely on our own understanding and mechanisms (cisterns that do NOT hold water – Jeremiah 2:13), as opposed to relying solely on God.

2 Corinthians 5:21 – Jesus (God personified) knew no sin yet, He took on the consequences of our sins and paid the price for us – a price we could NEVER pay.

No amount of “good” works on our part could ever result in salvation (Isaiah 64:6)

We are saved by GRACE (the Spirit of God) through FAITH (the Word of God).

In other words, we are saved by the HolySpirit through Jesus.

The same Word-and-Spirit combo that created all of creation.

The Word of God became flesh – Jesus.

He came to earth to do and (in conjunction with the HolySpirit) did the needful, that we may have renewed life –Eternal (unshakable) Life #TheForeverDeal.

A life born not of flesh and blood but by The Word-and-Spirit Combosame as in the Valley of Dry Bones –Ezekiel 37:1-14.

A life obtained and sustained not by works (“good” deeds) or human effort but simply by believing God – His Word, His Love … Who He IS.

How can we believe God without first knowing Him?

Well, that (I believe) is the essence of all God wants for us … I dare say that the cumulation of ALL that God has done from at least the foundation of the world till now and for all eternity sums up to thisONE THING– that we know Him.

Think about it … why have acompletedplan to save us from the foundation of the world? … BEFORE the creation of the tree that we ate and the death that ensued.

In many words …

Why create a tree that results in death … have the tree be put within our reach … allow us be tricked into eating it … allow us eat it.

PS: I use the word allow NOT to mean that God made us do it or that He tempted us into eating of the tree – James 1:13 God does NOT tempt us to sin. I specifically and explicitly mean that (in His sovereignty) He could have prevented all of it but didn’t. He let it be …

… we died. We were given enough time to prove (by ourselves) the futility of our ways, all the while being the proof of the need for salvation AND our inability to save ourselves.

THEN at the right time, God subjected Himself to a mediocre life on earth and went through a visible, somewhat relatable ordeal by choosing to die a gruesome death.

He could very well have raised an eyebrow or tapped His finger. My point is, of the multitude of options He could have chosen from to save us from sin and death, He chose the most personal and humbling path!Hechosethe most sacrificial expression of Love known to mankind(John 15:13).

Why go through this VERY elaborate plan?

That we may know Him … That we may know …

To know God is eternal LIFE (John 17:3). To know Him is the essence and fullness of life … To know Him is our greatest satisfaction … To know Him is MERCY … JOY … and PEACE … To know Him is the TRUTH that sets us free (John 8:32).

In truth, knowing God is the ONLY knowledge worth having …

To know Him is the beginning and the choice part of Wisdom– Proverbs 9:10

To know Him is the Fear of God 🥰💖 – Proverbs 2:1-6

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