Good morning,
We are still talking about each of us growing deeper in love with our heavenly Father. Every day we can experience a freedom to love Him as He loves us. It comes through the abandonment of our preconceived ideas of what we think loving Him means. Actually we can see the Father explain to us how He knows that we love Him. "But he who keeps (treasures) His Word [who bears in mind His precepts, who observes His message in its entirety], truly in him has the love of and for God been perfected (completed, reached maturity). By this we may perceive (know, recognize, and be sure) that we are in Him". (1 John 2:5) Keeping God's Word shows that we love Him. Simple, sounds simple enough, but we truly know that we often struggle to keep the Word of God. Even though we know that Jesus said, "my yoke is easy and my burden is light." We pick and choose the parts that are easier for us. For each person that may be different based upon our upbringing, our environment, our life choices, and a number of scenarios. We all view the "same information" through different filters of our lives. Yet God is an equalizer! We all have the same Holy Spirit and we all have the same love shed abroad in our hearts by Him. [Rom. 5:5] He is not trying to be elusive about loving Him. He puts us all on the same playing field. Other people change from day to day with their expectations and qualifications about what love looks like to them. You've heard it all before, "if you love me you would give me what I want when I ask for it." The list of expectations will change from person to person, and sometimes from moment to moment. God puts it to us simply and it is the same all the time and with everyone, He never changes. Keeping His Word makes our love perfected [completed, reach maturity; add what is yet wanting or lacking in order to render a thing full]. It is like giving the Father kisses and hugs, every time we keep His Word. Listen, that is what he says over and over again in His Word, "If you [really] love Me, you will keep (obey) My commands." (John 14:15)
So the next time you catch yourself saying, "Lord what do you want from me!?" You will hear His answer so clearly echoing back to you, "just love Me, by keeping My Word." He will say, "The person who has My commands and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I [too] will love him and will show (reveal, manifest) Myself to him. [I will let Myself be clearly seen by him and make Myself real to him.] Judas, not Iscariot, asked Him, Lord, how is it that You will reveal Yourself [make Yourself real] to us and not to the world? Jesus answered, If a person [really] loves Me, he will keep My word [obey My teaching]; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home (abode, special dwelling place) with him." (John 14:21-23) There is such a desire for intimacy from our Father, He really wants to reveal and make Himself known to all who really love Him. That is one of the reason that Enoch was one day here and then he was not. By his 'habitual walking' with God he learned to 'habitually keep' the Father's Word. Because he walked in obedience he walked in such a high level of revelation of God that he was then raptured up into His 'very' presence. That is prophetic for us, the end-time Church. We should desire to love God more so that more revelation of Him comes and then we walk into His 'very' presence also. Wow, let's keep doing the Word, so that we 'add what is yet lacking in order to render it full.'
Love,
Pastor D.
Daughters of Z 