Love is the Foundation for Christian Life - Do you have that Christ's Love ???

Love is the Foundation for Christian Life – Do you Have that Christ"s Love
AN OVERFLOW OF LOVE–does our love produce a life marked by obedience?

+ 2 John 1:6 Love means following His commandments, and His underlying commandment is that you conduct your lives in love. This is the first think you heard and nothing has changed. (THE MESSAGE)

Love is key. A heart that fully loves Christ produce a life that is marked by obedience to His word. How can you recognize loving obedience to Christ and His word?

1. Love obeys Christ’s commands WHOLEHEARTEDLY.
Those who love Christ will obey His commands simply because it is Christ’s word spoken to them. Whether it is the spoken commandment of Christ in scripture, His teachings, the Old or New Testament scriptures inspired by His Spirit, or the still small voice of His spirit speaking to the heart those who love Him will obey Him. Period.
+ Psalm 40:8 I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart. (NIV)
+ Luke 11:28 [Jesus said], “Blessed . . . are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (NIV)

I just want to obey Christ and serve Him only. If my obedience is because of convenience or my personal belief, then I am serving my self and not Christ. If my obedience is the result of those in authority over my and my desire to please them, then I serve man and not Christ. Only as I wholeheartedly respond to Christ with a willing heart of devotion do I serve Christ and Him alone.

2. Love obeys Christ’s commands WITHOUT QUESTION.

Because I love Christ I will do whatever Has asks whenever He asks me to do it. I am not free to pick and choose what or when I want to obey. It’s like we tell our kids, “delayed obedience is disobedience.”
The scriptures tell us that God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are different from ours (Isaiah 55:8). We may not always understand the path Christ wants us to walk; we may think we know a better way. If only God would consider what we think would be best, or direct us at a different time.
Love for Christ keeps us walking in obedience to the direction He tells us to go. Love makes His way our way even when we don’t understand it. We obey Christ without question.

3. Love obeys Christ’s commands CHEERFULLY.
Love never obeys begrudgingly or with remorse. Love obeys willingly. Loves desire is to please the one it loves through glad and joyful obedience.

+ Psalm 119:97 Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
+ Psalm 119:165 Great peace have they who love your law, and nothing can make them stumble.




4. Love obeys Christ’s commands CONSISTENTLY.

Love never fails. Because I love Christ I will always continue to love Him, therefore, I will continually obey Him.
+ Psalm 119:44 I will always obey your law, for ever and ever.
How is it possible to faithfully obey Christ at all times? Yes, our love for Christ produces or overflows with obedience, but it doesn’t end there.
+ Deuteronomy 30:14 No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

Our heart has been transformed by the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It’s the Holy Spirit that enables us to have a consistent love for Jesus that never fails.

Meditation Kit - Use it Often

Meditation Aid
As you meditate on any passage of Scripture Ask Question for Yourself
Is there:
a sin I should keep away from?
a promise I can call my own?
a command for me to obey?
a blessing I can enjoy?
a failure from which I can learn?
a victory for me to win?
a new thought about God, the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit, Satan, man?
a truth in this passage that has greatly affected me?

Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. {#2Pe 3:18}
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‘Grow in grace’—not in one grace only, but in all grace.
Grow in that root grace, faith. Believe the promises more firmly than you have done.
Let faith increase in fullness, constancy, simplicity
Grow also in love. Ask that your love may become extended,
More intense, more practical, influencing every thought, word, and deed.
Grow likewise in humility. Seek to lie very low, and know more of your own nothingness.
As you grow downward in humility, seek also to grow upward—having nearer approaches to God in prayer and more intimate fellowship with Jesus.
May God the Holy Spirit enable you to ‘grow in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour.’
He who grows not in the knowledge of Jesus, refuses to be blessed.
To know him is ‘life eternal,’ and to advance in the knowledge of him is to increase in happiness.
He who does not long to know more of Christ knows nothing of him yet.
Whoever hath sipped this wine will thirst for more, for although Christ doth satisfy, yet it is such a satisfaction, that the appetite is not cloyed, but whetted.
If you know the love of Jesus—as the hart panteth for the water brooks,
So will you pant after deeper draughts of his love.
If you do not desire to know him better, then you love him not, for love always cries,
‘Nearer, nearer.’ Absence from Christ is hell; but the presence of Jesus is heaven.
Rest not then content without an increasing