Words Of Encouragement For Your Day (Monday 09/19/2011)

I Finally Noticed How Much You Really Love Me

Revelation 2:1-5 Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹TO THE angel (messenger) of the assembly (church) in Ephesus write: These are the words of Him Who holds the seven stars [which are the messengers of the seven churches] in His right hand, Who goes about among the seven golden lampstands [which are the seven churches]: ²I know your industry and activities, laborious toil and trouble, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot tolerate wicked [men] and have tested and critically appraised those who call [themselves] apostles (special messengers of Christ) and yet are not, and have found them to be impostors and liars. ³I know you are enduring patiently and are bearing up for My name's sake, and you have not fainted or become exhausted or grown weary. ⁴But I have this [one charge to make] against you: that you have left (abandoned) the love that you had at first [you have deserted Me, your first love]. ⁵Remember then from what heights you have fallen. Repent (change the inner man to meet God's will) and do the works you did previously [when first you knew the Lord], or else I will visit you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you change your mind and repent.

            Recently there have been some major changes within my life.  Some really awesome and noteworthy and some that make you think that it might be okay to ask God to turn His back for a moment while you handle some business in a not so “Christ-like” fashion, I would suffice it to say a mafia like fashion.  In the past few weeks, I have definitely been overwhelmed challenging news, and underwhelmed by its affects upon my life.  It seemed I wasn’t getting a break, and then I thought about some others that were in the same boat, and we all seemed to have one major thing in common and that was that we were all serving God and had stepped up our voice about who we serve and who we belonged to, we had been stretching in faith and action.  I began to feel a certain type of way about that, and not much of it was good.  I found myself angry, not at God more confused with Him, but just angry.  I had lost sight of something my Grandmother use to quote all of the time which was “all things work together for the good to them that love the Lord and are called according to HIS purpose.”  But I also forgot how much God loves me in those moments because all I could see was things piling up and news that challenged my stability in every way coming at me.  It was only yesterday morning after waking up wrestling with myself that I found a place of surrender and was able to push through and raise my hands and cry and ask God to forgive me for forgetting that He loved me and was present that I felt a weight being lifted and my praise return. 

Beyonce’s song entitled “Love On Top,” says “You're the one that gives your all.
You're the one I always call.  When I need you make everything stop. Finally you put my love on top.”  When I read these lyrics, it made me know that God is not like people, in anyway.  He loves us and He hears us, even when things are crazy and dark, and the walls seem like they are closing in.  He does not belittle or berate us, nor does He throw our love back on us, He places it on top.  He loved you and I so much He gave us a gift that has the ability to heal, deliver, save and set free which is His son Jesus; but then He turned around on top of all of that and gave us a comforter and guide and teacher that abides in us and with us through the vehicle of the Holy Spirit.    Even when we slack, God is not slack towards us or concerning His promises towards us.  He never leaves us; He always loves us, even when we make the choice not love on Him.  He is always desirous of relationship with us and to have fellowship and time with us, even when we have ignored Him or downgraded our relationship status with Him.  He prioritizes us even when we don’t do the same for Him.  Truly He is amazing!

But how fair is it for God to put our love on top, to make us the priority when we aren’t doing the same for Him?  How fair is it that He sacrificed something precious and uniquely His for us, but we don’t want to even give Him our time, our talent, our trust or our treasures?  It would be nice for us to give back, what He gave, a life for a life.  He is asking us to die, to self, to this world’s mentality and its demands and love on Him a while and seek Him and sit with Him a while.  He is asking that we trust Him understanding Jeremiah 29:11 that the thoughts and plans He has for us of good and not evil to prosper us and not to harm us to give us a future and a hope an expected end!  Just as I had to face that I had lost sight of some things many others fall victim to this too.  We should be determined no matter what to keep God’s love for us on top, just as He does for us!