Facing Your Soul with Confidence

 If it were possible to face your soul, what would you see? Carl Jung, the Swiss psychologist, observed, "People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their soul." Jesus stressed the importance of the soul by asking, "What good is it for a person to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?"

Jesus warned against becoming so preoccupied with things that the soul is neglected or abused. Think of the soul as being the conduit through which God communicates with us. To love God with all your heart and soul, strength and mind conjoins you to him so completely that you become one with him in spirit.

John Steinbeck wrote in The Grapes of Wrath, "A fella ain't got a soul of his own, but only a piece of a bigger one." If your soul has been abused or neglected, it can be restored. Committing to loving God with all your soul insures its restoration. So praise God for that opportunity.                        

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This is what the Lord says: “Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your soul.”

~Jeremiah 6:16 New Living Translation

                  

Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

~Psalm 103:1 New International Version

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Keeping Your Love for God Alive

While I was visiting my cousins Frankie and Jim as a young teenager, Jim asked me what it meant to love God. That he asked me such a profound question surprised me and left me feeling inadequate to answer. I can't remember what I said, but I pray that the Holy Spirit helped Jim understand and accept God’s love.

In Mark 12:30 Jesus told a religious leader to love God with all of his heart, soul, strength, and mind. Loving God with your complete being is a lifetime developmental process, but the Holy Spirit teaches and helps us yield to that invitation.

Plato, the Greek philosopher four centuries before Christ, wrote, “We believe the soul is immortal and capable of enduring all extremes of good and evil, so we constantly pursue righteousness and wisdom.” Proverbs 22:5 adds, "In the path of the wicked are thorns and snares, but he that guards his soul stays far from them." So permit your soul to be saturated with God’s love. 

 

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Jesus replied: If anyone loves me, they will obey me. Then my Father will love them, and we will come to them and live in them.

~John 14:23 Contemporary English Version

 

We put our hope in the Lord, he is our protector and our help. We are glad because of him; we trust in his holy name. May your constant love be with us, Lord, as we put our hope in you.

~Psalm 33:20-22 Good News Bible

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Give God the Best of Yourself

It's relatively easy to communicate about love primarily because it's an emotion we attribute to people and things. Love is a crucial emotional need that helps people thrive from infancy throughout each developmental stage of life. Love is tough but can be wounded, yet restored within the bounds of forgiveness.

God's word is clear about his love being long-suffering and patient. That being true, we are commanded to love him as he loves us. This does not mean we are to love him with a loose definition of the word, but with our complete being. In other words, we are to give God our absolute best  each day.

We realize that loving God with all our heart, strength, soul, and mind is difficult to grasp. However our hope does not depend on our own righteousness, but on the righteousness of Christ Jesus who compensates for our deficiencies. As you allow yourself to be loved by God, you will grow to love him more completely.                      

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I love those who love me, and those who seek me diligently find me.

~Proverbs 8:17 English Standard Version

 

Do your best to present yourself to God an approved workman who has nothing to be ashamed of, who properly presents the message of truth.

~2 Timothy 2:15 Williams – New Testament in the Language of the People

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A Life Honored by God

Food, clothing, and shelter are human beings’ basic needs. These primary needs do not vary, but how they are met depends on the uniqueness of each individual. When these essentials are secured, the need for love and affection accompanies the physical and emotional demand for safety. Complementing the need for love and affection is companionship to prevent loneliness from dominating. The family continues to be society’s stabilizing force.

Because we are created by the Lord God, we are commanded to maintain a close, loving relationship with him. We are commanded to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

If this appears challenging, that’s because it can be accomplished only by faith in Christ Jesus, who provides encouragement, wisdom, and guidance for completing the task. The reward for choosing this difficult, narrow road Jesus referred to in Matthew 7:14 is that it leads to a life honored by the Lord God.   

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Don’t look for shortcuts to God. The market is flooded with surefire, easy-going formulas for a successful life that can be practiced in your spare time. Don’t fall for that stuff, even though crowds of people do. The way to life – to God! – is vigorous and requires total attention.

~Matthew 7:13-14 The Message

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A Clean Heart and a Renewed Spirit

Deuteronomy 6:5 commands us to love God with all of our heart, soul, strength, and mind. In order to accomplish this awesome task we, like the Psalmist, must petition God to create in us a clean heart and renew a right spirit within us, for he indeed knows the secrets of our heart. What does it mean to “love God with all your heart”?

Consider putting absolutely nothing before God by giving him your complete trust, respect, devotion and faithfulness. For most of us that requires growth and maturity, plus learning to prioritize where to place our loyalties. If we get bogged down with worldly cares, then God will renew a right spirit within us.

God does not leave us to ourselves in committing our entire being into his care. He provides his unconditional love plus the gift of faith to all who accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. We then have peace and security as anchors for life. What a wonderful blessing!                             

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My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

~Psalm 51:17 New International Version

 

Whoever conceals their sins, does not prosper; but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy.

~Proverbs 28:13 New International Version

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A Winning Battle

Discontent can be dangerous if life becomes boring or when there's too much of the same thing with little or no variations. Human beings were designed for growth and change with each developmental stage of life. A wealthy young man asked Jesus what he had to do to inherit eternal life. When Jesus asked about actually living by the Ten Commandments, he protested, "I've done that since my youth."

The spirit of the Ten Commandments that Jesus wanted this man to capture is activated this way: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." If we're not careful, life becomes mundane and absent of passion for God or people, which then becomes a seedbed for discontent.

When you focus on loving God with all your heart, discontent has a difficult time finding a place to settle in. Loving God with your complete being creates passion for life and its purpose. God wants you to love him with complete sincerity and devotion.                

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What does the Lord want from you? The Lord wants you to respect and follow him, to love and serve him with all your heart and soul, and to obey his laws and teachings that I am giving you today. Do this, and all will go well for you.

~Deuteronomy 10:12-13 Contemporary English Version

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Life's Greatest Need: To Love God and Others

Today the word love can be applied to an array of emotions from being fond of someone to being in a committed relationship. It's not unusual for a person to love their home, their pet, or their truck. Jesus was asked by an expert on the commandments what he had to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus asked him, "What is written in the law?”

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus replied, "You've answered correctly. Do this and you will live." Did you notice how God's word listed four separate ways to love him?

God never requires the impossible, but this is difficult for most of us. Still, it’s within reach through faith in Christ Jesus by giving him, without reservation and without hesitation, your complete devotion from the depths of your entire being. Although this is a lifetime endeavor, the blessings for such a commitment overshadow the sacrifice. 

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Jesus replied, “The one who obeys me is the one who loves me; and because he loves me, my Father will love him; and I will too, and I will reveal myself to him.”

~John 14:21 The Living Bible

My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we have love for each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children, and we know him…Real love isn’t our love for God, but his love for us. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice by which our sins are forgiven.

~1 John 4:7,10 Contemporary English Version

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Love Equals Commitment

 Anger and conflicts are impossible to avoid in relationships simply because differences of opinions are present in so many areas of life. However, where love exists for one another, there will be a commitment and incentive to be forgiving so differences can be worked out and love can continue to dominate.

The apostle Paul reminds us we are indebted to love one another because God loves us with all our flaws and failures. Therefore we’re obligated to love others who are equally flawed or even more so. The greatest rewards come from reaching beyond what is easy and comfortable to showing compassion to those who might be undeserving or even unappreciative.

When Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him, Peter’s answer was, yes. Jesus responded by instructing him to take care of his sheep, meaning fellow believers. Jesus loved us so much he died on the cross for us. Loving infers action and often demands sacrifice, so "Beloved, let us love one another."                             

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Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that he died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now!

~2 Corinthians 5:14-16 New Living Translation

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Three Essentials for Relationships

The apostle Paul identifies three powerful forces that reside within an individual. These strengths give relationships the wherewithal to last a lifetime. The three: faith, hope, and love, are essential to any relationship including our personal relationship with God. When God's love resides within a person, it provides stability for a lifetime.

The explanation for this is that God's perfect love is not subject to the ups and downs of life that influence, choices, and behavior. Several books address the idea of love being a choice regardless of what’s taking place. Nevertheless, given its mystery and complications, rare is the person who would deny it makes life worth living.

The greatest incentive for loving God is that he first loved us. His love is boundless, without variations, and the greatest display of that love was giving Jesus Christ his Son to die on the cross for us. By accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior you become a recipient of the power of God's love.           

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So you see, our love for him comes as a result of his loving us first.

~1 John 4:19 The Living Bible

 

In this life we have three lasting qualities – faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of them is love.     

~1 Corinthians 13:13 Phillips – New Testament in Modern English

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The Mystery and Power of God's Gift of Love

An intriguing mystery of life has to do with the power of love. Perhaps the reason love is a mystery has to do with its ability to influence and change people when nothing else could. Given its power and mystery, its little wonder the word is used so loosely in clichés and meaningless conversations.

The eighth chapter of The Song of Solomon has these descriptive lyrics: "Love is as strong as death, it's jealousy as unyielding as the grave. It burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot wash it away."

Solomon is referring to commitment that's anchored in a bond of trust and respect so it can withstand the trials and test all relationships must endure. Anyone who’s experienced love as strong as death and as unyielding as the grave realizes it's a gift you’ve received from God to be given to others. That makes its strength a mystery and reveals its power.  

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And I pray that you, rooted and founded in love yourselves, may be able to grasp (with all Christians) how wide and long and deep and high is the love of Christ – and to know for yourselves that love so far above our understanding. So will you be filled through all your being with God himself!

~Ephesians 3:18-19 Phillips – New Testament in Modern English

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Communion – Pathway to God's Heart

Communion is the pathway for reaching the heart of God. The very nature of communion indicates an intimate connection for expressing your concerns and then being assured you will be responded to in a way that’s helpful. What builds a bridge to communication is faith in the one to whom closeness is desired.

Faith creates a powerful desire to be near to God and to believe he desires to be close to you. Faith gives you and each believer the incentive to be close to God and to follow his purpose for your life. Faith then helps you respond with gratitude to God for his love and faithfulness in providing for all your needs.

The reason for being receptive to communion with Christ Jesus is that it motivates you to live for him wherever you are. Communion with God also creates the desire to be closer to those with whom you share personal relationships. Faith makes it possible to trust that God is present in all your attempts to communicate with others.  

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You are my strength and my choice forever, Powerful Lord God…It is good for me to be near you. I choose you as my protector, and I will tell about your wonderful deeds.

~Psalm 72:26-28 Contemporary English Version 

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Communication – God's Design for Intimacy

Communication is an attribute that sets humans apart from the rest of creation. By the use of words we’re able to understand what others need as well as their feelings and intentions. We communicate on multiple levels, including silence. Facial and eye expressions and other body language relate clear messages.

God designed us for communion with himself, which is a profound truth from his word. By faith we enter into fellowship with God, and then faith works to builds a bridge to intimacy with him. Faith creates a desire to be near to God and prompts us to seek forgiveness when sin becomes a barrier to fellowship and intimacy.

Listen to David’s need for fellowship with God. "One thing I asked of the Lord is that I may dwell in God’s house all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and seek him in his temple." David gained comfort and security by communing with God personally, and you can follow his lead.  

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Jesus answered, “If anyone really loves me, he will observe my teaching, and my Father will love him, and both of us will come in face-to-face fellowship with him; yes, we will make our special dwelling place with him.

~John 14:23 Williams – New Testament in the Language of the People

 

We saw it, we heard it, and now we’re telling you so you can experience it along with us, this experience of communion with the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ.

~1 John 1:3 The Message

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The Heart of Communion with God

 The word communion calls to mind an array of images specifically as it relates to my religious experiences. In my tradition the Lord Supper is periodically served in remembrance of the last meal Jesus shared with his disciples. Those who participate in this sacrament acknowledge the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross to reach out to us.

At the heart of communion is faith which makes us acceptable to God. By faith and trust in Christ Jesus, each person is made worthy to be a participant in this sacrament. Therefore we consciously, earnestly, and  willingly examine ourselves to discover, confess, and repent of sin so we can approach God with a clean heart.

Accompanying faith in participation of communion are hope and courage to seek a satisfying and deep, intimate, loving relationship with the Lord God. We also offer our thanksgiving to him for sending Christ Jesus to lay down his life - to give his life to redeem and save us from the power of sin.

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During the meal Jesus took some bread in his hands. He blessed the bread and broke it. Then he gave it to his disciples and said, “Take this and eat it. This is my body.” Jesus picked up a cup of wine and gave thanks to God. He then gave it to his disciples and said, “Take this and drink it. This is my blood, and with it God makes his agreement with you. It will be poured out, so that many people will have their sins forgiven.”

~Matthew 26:26-28 Contemporary English Version

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