Jesus replied:  ”love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.

Matthew 22: 37-38

What does it mean to love the Lord this way?  How do I know I love God?

I have been married long enough to know that Love isn’t just the passionate romantic high that Hollywood likes to show as true love in the movies.  Lasting love is more about walking side-by-side day in and day out.  Doing the things that I know will make him (both God and my husband) happy.  When we see this kind of love and unselfishness in the movies, it is being mocked as outdated or unrealistic (e.g. The Stepford Wives).

From the beginning of creation, in the Garden of Eden, God didn’t obedience out of necessity.  He gave Adam and Eve the choice to love Him and trust Him and obey Him or to reject him and eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The Bible defines loving God as obeying Him.

Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.

–John 14:21

This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.

–1 John 5:3

This is probably what James was talking about in James 2:17 when he said, “Faith without action is dead.”

If loving God means obeying His commands, I know that I do not love God as well as I should, and I never can love God as well as He deserves. This is where God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice come into play.  Even though Jesus has paid the price, and I don’t have to earn eternal life, I obey God’s commands as best I know how because I love Him.  I study to learn and understand His commands because i want to become more and more like Jesus.

The more I love God, the more I obey God, the more I realize my own sinfulness, the more I long for the day when I can love Him perfectly.

Each day that I walk with Christ, God is building my character for the next assignment.  Each small assignment is preparation for the next.

After ~24 years as a Christian, I don’t feel like I have built the character that I should have by now.  I am sure that some of my feelings of inadequacy stem from self-deprecation and focusing on all of my faults.  I also know that I have not developed the diligence to pursue anything with constancy, and I have not diligently pursued a relationship with God that would bring about lasting change in my character.  I have wasted many years on frivolous things, and I cannot get a single hour back.

Looking back at the wasted time, I clearly understand what Jesus was saying in Matthew 6:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth were moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heave, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

I have spent years pursuing frivolous things, and I can never get t hose years back.  I could easy waste a few more weeks wallowing in self-pity, mourning the time I have wasted.  No amount of self-pity will redeem the time.

Today I change courses.  I am coming home to say, “Father, I have sinned against heave and in your sight, and I am no longer worthy to be called your daughter.”  (Luke 15:21)  Today I begin to abide in Christ again (John 15:5).  Today I lose my life (Luke 9:24).  Today I choose to respond to God so that He can continue his work in me and once day, hopefully He will say to me, “well done, good and faithful servant.”  (Matthew 25:21).

Today the prodigal son comes home.

Therefore God also has highly exalted him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven , and those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:9-11

What an amazing worship service that will be!  When every eternal soul wherever that soul is will recognize Jesus at Lord and God will be glorified by every single soul that he has created!

My heart jumps for joy at the thought.

Yet I feel my throat constrict with fear.  I know that the day of judgement is coming and there are people I love dearly who will not be brought to their knees until God forces them there.

He desires that none should perish (2 Peter 3:9), and so do I.

I wish I was more confident in sharing my faith.  I wish I felt more equipped.  I know that I have the Holy Spirit to guide my words.  I pray that God will open my eyes to opportunities to share my faith with non-believers.

In John 10:7-10 Jesus describes himself as “the door.”  I have been a Christian for over 22 years and I have never considered what it means for Jesus to be the door!

I’ve read those verses and thought, “Oh that’s a nice little visual.  A wall and a door.”

Before Jesus lived a sinless life on this earth and died on the cross it was like Mary Lenox in the book The Secret Garden. She knew there was a garden but there was no door.  She looked and looked and looked but she was shut out.

With Jesus’ death, the Ivy blew back and suddenly there was a door in the wall to the garden!  Without Jesus, there is no way into the garden.

Once you are into the garden, what do you do?  That’s where the Holy spirit comes in.  He is a guide (John 16:13-14).   He shows you how to cultivate the garden and make it beautiful.  He guides you where to work.

The final goal of entering this garden is that God may be glorified and that He will one day say to you, “Well done my good and faithful servant.”

My life has been so full of changes of the past year.  There is nothing like becoming a Mama that will bring a woman to her knees in prayer.  As he is growing into a toddler I find mysel praying for patience and wisdom and a hundered other virtues that I thought I had in good measure.  I have learned that I really don’t know anything!

Earlier this month I was visiting my parents and Mom strongly suggested that I join a women’s Bible study.  Our church has a Women’s Bible study that has been meeting every year, during the school year, for the past 15 years.  The names and faces of the women have changed but the purpose has remained the same–to gaze upon the face of God and to become women after God’s heart.  They provide free child care as well as coffee, blueberry muffins, and adult conversation.  What more could a Mama want?

I got put in a small group with a bunch of empty-nesters.  In the introductions it went something like this, “We’re empty nesters so now we have dogs.”  Most of the women have children my age.

I’ve never been good at going to a Bible study more than once, but this time something is different.  Maybe it’s the peace of having 2 hours a week to myself knowing that Wiggles-boy is in good hands.  Even beyond that, I have a sense that God led me there, Mom pushed me there, and I’m there for some specific reason.  For now, I’m just after God’s heart.

In a 2006 survey conducted by The Barna Research Group, 47% of professing Christians read the Bible during a typical week.   Since 1988, that number has varied between 31-47%.

We say that we believe that the Bible is the word of God and a Christians guide to living right, but the vast majority of us forget to read it!  Why don’t we read the Bible more often (even daily)?

• The Bible is too hard to understand
• I don’t have time [to study the Bible the "right" way]
• I already know what’s in there/ I don’t need to read the Bible
• I prefer devotional books, commentaries, etc
• I don’t like what I read in the Bible
• I don’t have the discipline
• The Bible is an old book and not really relevant to what I’m going through today.

Satan uses numerous vehicles to spread his doctrine and theology.  According to the A.C. Nielson Co (the Nielson ratings people), the average American watches 4 hours of Television per day, and this is just one way that we are bombarded with the message of the world.  If you don’t read the Bible daily, how do you combat these messages?  How do you assure right beliefs?

What if you really believed that what you say you believe was really real?  How would you change the way you live day to day?

That’s the question I’ll be asking myself this year (and for the rest of my life).

You are in a battle for your heart. Don’t ever forget that. This battle began the moment you accepted Christ into your heart. You made satan really mad that day!

When you feel beat up, and pushed down, remember that you are a warrior on God’s side. Satan would like nothing better than for you to not get up and fight.

The battle is ongoing, but there is an end. It ends when you go to heaven (through death or Jesus’ return). Until then, put on the full armor of God and fight the good fight.

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