Sharing with ACT Family on 14/09/2013
All glory to God
I want to talk about a few things God has laid on my heart. I was meditating on what made me close to God? What drove me towards him? What is it that makes me want to know him more?
It had a lot to do with an earnest desire to love God. We all heard of the love of God. Here are few excerpts from the bible describing God’s love for us. What better verse to start off with than John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Psalms 139:14 – I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…
Romans 5:5 – … God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit…
James 1:17 – Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the father of heavenly lights…
Jeremiah 32:40 – I will make an everlasting covenant with them; I will never stop doing good to them…
There are countless other verses in the bible that describe his love for us. Now the real question is…how much do we love Him back?
Think about these questions as I read them through…
- Do we love him so much so that we never feel like leaving his presence?
- Do we walk with him every day listening to what he has to say?
- Does our personal prayer have only groanings that words cannot express?
- Is Jesus the only person we feel like talking about the whole day?
- Is he always on our mind and in our thoughts?
- Is our relationship so intimate that we think about him even while we’re asleep?
- Do we talk to him continuously and ask him for his opinion on everything we do?
- Are we always considerate of his likes and dislikes?
- And lastly do we rush home from work/uni/school to be in his presence once again?
That’s our lord desire for our lives. That’s how intimate he wants to be with us.
So how do we love God? It helps to look at those that have gone before us…who have loved God and walked with him. One such man is King David who is known to be a man after God’s own heart. Nearly half of the psalms in the bible are accredited to King David and they portray his experience and relationship with God. It shows how he is deeply in love with God.
Everywhere you see, there is that intimacy between God and King David. One good place to see it unfold is Psalms 63…It was written when David was in the desert of Judea.
1 O God, you are my God,
and I long for you.
My whole being desires you;
like a dry, worn-out, and waterless land,
my soul is thirsty for you.
2 Let me see you in the sanctuary;
let me see how mighty and glorious you are.
3 Your constant love is better than life itself,
and so I will praise you.
4 I will give you thanks as long as I live;
I will raise my hands to you in prayer.
5 My soul will feast and be satisfied,
and I will sing glad songs of praise to you.
6 As I lie in bed, I remember you;
all night long I think of you,
7 because you have always been my help.
In the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.
8 I cling to you,
and your hand keeps me safe.
What a beautiful Psalm… I desire that all of us will learn to dwell in the secret place of the most high. That we will have that intimate love relationship with our God…that we would desire to experience the sweetness of his presence.
I pray that each one of us will learn to walk with our savior…That our walk would be so close that when our time comes to leave this earth…it’ll be just another day…that’s it’ll be just the same…just the same
This goes beyond just our love for God. What about our love for our parents, elders? I know some of my friends may argue about their advice. They say, well what do they know? They don’t even understand what we’re going through. They didn’t have this and that when they were growing up.
Its true…they probably didn’t have the things we have to go through today. They may not have the slightest knowledge in technological aspects. But I tell you what…they have experience.
Things haven’t really changed if you ask me. For example, We now have heating panels as opposed to open fire in those days. So when they say with their experience, putting your hands in fire will burn you…and you tried putting your hands on the heating panel…you will still get burnt. The consequences are pretty much the same.
So, it pays to listen to their advice and obey. No matter how good we are (as young people)…we would never come close to our parents or elders. We must learn to honor them as the word of God instructs us…for they have been through a lot more than we ever have.
John 14:15 says “If you love me, you will obey what I command”. Likewise, if you love your parents, elders, you will do what they say.
