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First of all Happy
New Year!!! I pray 2008 will be your greatest
year yet and the best way to start off the new
year right is by following God. That is the
essential nature of our text this week. "Jesus
answered and said to him, 'If anyone loves Me,
he will keep My word: and My Father will love
him, and We will come to him and make Our home
with him.'" Is there a difference between
loving God and obeying Him? According to Jesus,
no! Jesus tells us that a fruit of our love for
Him is our obedience to Him. This kind of
reminds me of premarital counseling that Diana
and I went through almost three years ago (poor
Diana!). Our pastor at the time and still my
good friend looked at both of us and said, "it
is not enough to simply say I love you." Now he
would tell us to make sure that we told each
other that we loved the other frequently but his
main point was that there must be actions to
show it. You see love is an emotion given to us
by our Father in heaven. But emotions by
themselves produce nothing. But when we put an
action behind our emotion then people can see
how we truly feel. If all I ever did was tell
Diana that I love her, how could she know that I
truly did love her? She couldn't! But when I
say that I love her coupled with doing something
for her or with her then I show her what is
inside of me. I know that she doesn't like to
be alone in the house at night, so how can I
show her that I love her. Well when I am there
I can go back and check to make sure all the
doors are locked before we go to bed. And when
I am not there I can call to check on her to
make sure she is doing ok or let her know that
she can go stay with someone for the night. But
the best way to show her that I truly love her
is to make sure I am home each night with her.
Our relationship with Jesus is the same. It is
easy to give Him lip service, but if we want to
show Him that we love Him we must be willing to
obey Him. When we obey God's word a couple of
things happen. Number one it shows God that we
truly are sincere in our love for Him. Secondly
it strengthens your witness to the world.
People will believe 100% of what you do before
they will believe 1% of what you say. And as we
show our love for God through obedience look at
what Jesus reminds us of, "....and We will come
to him and make Our home with him." We will be
able to sense the presence of God in our lives!
So I want to challenge all of us to strive to
not only say that we love God, but to show it by
obeying His word. In case you need some
practical ways of obeying God let me give you
just a few. First of all truly love God with
all your have (Matthew 22:37). Secondly love
your neighbor (everyone) as yourself (Matthew
22:39). Next pray daily, hourly, minute by
minute (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Also, study
God's word (2 Timothy 2:15; John 8:31, 32).
Finally you can meditate on God's word and hide
it in your heart (memorize it) (1 Timothy
4:12-16). May God continue to bless you and
your family as you walk with Him daily!
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