Part 1 of 11: Love for God
For my first blog, I decided to start an extended
series on a crucial aspect of Christian living, the fruits/ proofs of authentic
Christianity. Lord willing, this series will
last through the course of the summer. Furthermore,
I came across these eleven points in the MacArthur Study Bible and am using
them as a springboard, as in a launching point for a sermon series that I am currently
working on.
Love for God:
Imagine that you are about to finish up another school
year and are excited for the future opportunities that await you. All of a sudden you start feeling under the
weather. Of course, the first thought is
it is a cold or flu bug and you expect to get over it. But days turn to weeks and then a month. Instead of getting better, it is getting
worse and to the point that you can barely breathe and have to be rushed to the
hospital! What do you do when the emergency
room doctor calls in the Oncology doctor, whose day off it is, to tell you that
you have Leukemia and that you have to be immediately transferred to a hospital
that is an hour away because you are knocking at death’s door and need to start
treatments now?
This is a true story, it happened to me and similar
stories happen every day to both Christians and non-Christians alike. I wish that I could tell you that I was a
super saint and started diving into deep prayers … But what I can honestly say
is that I had a peace about and through the whole ordeal. Why is that?
Because over the course of my life, I have realized through many trials
and tribulations, even before the cancer issue, that one of the most critical
issues to develop is a love for God.
This does not happen overnight and usually takes many trials that only the
Lord can see us through. These trials
are ones that no money, power, or prestige can fix.
Romans 8:5-11 ESV
5 For those who
live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but
those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the
Spirit. 6 For
to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is
life and peace. 7 For
the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to
God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those
who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however,
are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in
you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ
is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because
of righteousness. 11 If
the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through
his Spirit who dwells in you.
Wow, this passage is both powerfully convicting and at the
same time reassuring. Death vs. life and
peace. The question for each of us is- which is going to win? Do we cower in fear like those who have no
faith (1 Th. 4:13-14)? No, because we trust in the Lord. My exhortation to all is that we focus our
energies and thoughts towards the Lord to develop a richer love for and of Him. The American Dream (Materialism), which is one
of the primary evidences of a fleshly life, cannot and will not fill the void in
our lives. Yes, in living on
this Earth we must work, but the accumulation of stuff is not the goal in life as promoted
in the Bible (there will be more on that in a future blog). Therefore, our love for God is critical and
the development of that love through the good times and the bad, with the Holy
Spirit’s empowerment, is what gives us peace through all the events in
life. In closing, here are a couple
other verses that are similar in nature and well worth reading: Ps. 42:1ff;
73:25; and Lk. 10:27.
May the Lord Bless and Keep You!
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