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Posts Tagged ‘Love of God’

“For My Two Eyes”

Posted in Love of God, tagged , , , , on November 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Judges 16:22-30

I hear God Almighty speaking to us about our eyes. You see, when the Philistines caught Samson after he gave out his secret to Delilah, they slapped a hot sword across his eyes and singed out his eyes. They put him as an animal to grind corn. As he was grinding, he said, “Oh, God.” Now he could see. Do you remember the poem The Blind Plowman? “He took mine eyes that I might see.” Samson said, “O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.” Amen. Then, when the boy led him into the arena, they were laughing at him, “Look at the man, the mighty giant that used to kill us.” They didn’t know that the man’s hair was growing back. They didn’t know that repentance brings back your hair. What did God do that for? He did it to bring the man to repentance.

Oh, God loves us so much. We should be ashamed of ourselves and I will tell you why. We don’t love our children as much as God loves us. We love the nice pretty ones that do well more than we love those that don’t do well. We are disgusted with some of them because they don’t do well and they do us bad and evil. God loves the bad ones just as much as He loves the good ones. His entire plan is to bring you out of the darkness into the light and so He will do all kinds of things to you. Yes. He will sting you, He will bite you, He will cut you, He will bounce you to bring you unto Himself. Then, what a glorious morning when He hugs you and says, “I’ve got you!” Hallelujah. That is the love of God that is greater far than tongue or pen could ever tell. Oh, what a God we serve, far beyond our conscious understanding!

We can’t understand God. How could He love a wretched person like me? I look at my own life. Why am I here? It is only because of God; nothing else but God’s mercy. And He wants me to do something; He brings me here because He knows I will do that which He wants me to do. Amen.

You know the stubborn child that you have, the “bad one”? Sometimes if that quality is turned to God, that quality will be glorious in the sight of God. God sees some of us rebellious but the rebellion is the good nature that God put in you to be able to stand and withstand in a battle. The devil takes a hold of that good nature and turns it into rebellion. So, we see the rebellious one and oh, we are against the rebellious one. But, how beautiful he is when he turns to God. Hallelujah!

So, Samson began to find God and he said, “…O God,… for my two eyes,” and then he pulled down the temple of Dagon. Oh, my goodness, what a beautiful thought! Samson called unto the LORD, and said, “O Lord GOD, remember me…” (Judges 16:28). My God, what a prayer! Think of your heart saying, “Oh, God, remember me. Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, I pray thee. Strengthen me, I pray Thee, only this once, oh God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.”

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, May 2009, pg. 27)

Thought for today: Oh, what a God we serve, far beyond our conscious understanding!

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A Blocker to Love

Posted in Love of God, tagged , , , , , , on October 26, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 13

Can you imagine the following scenario? Somebody went to the store and lifted the store. You know, what we call shoplifting. When he went home, though, his heart smote him and he repented of what he did. He decided to go back into the store and drop back the thing he had stolen. He didn’t tell anybody. But he came to church, and because the gift of God is without repentance, when he came to the congregation, and especially having just repented, the Spirit of God moved upon him and he gave a word. But while he was pilfering, you were around the aisle in the store, and you saw him. “I won’t hear anything from that man,” you said. And you came in the church and told your best friend. But it so happened that your best friend had a best friend, and your best friend told her best friend and her best friend had another best friend and the best friend… until the whole congregation had been told. So when the man got up and the Spirit of God spoke through him, everybody dropped the curtain, refused to hear him. Who lost? You lost, because you listened to the voice of slander.

That is why Paul called the voice of slander diabolos, devils. It is just like the demons that go from one place to another carrying evil. You are ordained of God to carry good tidings. You are not ordained to carry negatives. If the brother stole something and you saw him, go to God and pray to God and say, “Lord, help that brother.” And you take him to one side and say, “You know, I saw you when you stole that thing and pushed it in your pocket.” Then the brother would be able to say, “I am sorry, but I repented and took it back.” But if you never said anything to him and went and scattered it, then you destroyed the work of God by the power of hate! If that brother had been your natural brother, you would not have told anyone.

Hate is a blocker to love. If you find out that you cannot love God’s people as you ought to, it is because you have allowed their wrong deeds to affect you and you hold it in your heart. Can you understand that? Love thinketh no evil. How could love think no evil when there is evil? You say, “But I saw the evil.” Love thinketh no evil. Love rejoiceth not in iniquity (I Corinthians 13:5-6). That is, the person gets hit because he was wrong and you said, “He had it coming to him.” That is not love. He had it coming to him, but you are sorry for him. If it were your child, you would think of him differently. Why do you think that your children do so many wrong things? God is trying to teach you how to deal with children who are rude and do wrong things. God is trying to teach you how to deal with the people of God. You love them just the same. They do a lot of wrong things but you love them just the same and you conquer them by love.

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing.” (I Corinthians 13:1-2) Don’t you see how God separates the gifts from love? “I have great gifts. I can preach. I can teach. I can do this.” You are nothing. God help you. God help us.

I just want to tell you that love lifts us up out of the darkness into the light. Just begin to love and God will lift you up.

There was a man, Brother Smith, who wrote the last verse of the song, “The Love of God.”

Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth (all the grass you see around) a quill and every man a scribe by trade.
To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry,
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.”

That is not an idle dream. Those are the last words he wrote and died. They found them in his prison cell. Do you know what happened to him? He was a rich man; he had a lot of money and he began to talk about the love of God. His children committed him to the asylum because they wanted his riches, but he loved them just the same. He loved them just the same. Praise be to God. Let us be the children of love.

There is love that we are supposed to have for one another. The scripture translates it as bowels of compassion, that you have a feeling for the person. You feel it way down in your heart. God is talking about love. You can’t be mad with the people you love. If you have love, you don’t get mad with the people. You will get sad when you see them doing wrong things, but you won’t get mad with them. May God help us to be the children of love.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2005, pg. 47-49)

Thought for today: The love lifts us up out of the darkness into the light. Just begin to love and God will lift you up.

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“He That Dwelleth in Love Dwelleth in God”

Posted in Love of God, tagged , , , , on October 21, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: I John 4:16

God wants us to abide in His love. He said, “And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him” (I John 4:16). Can you understand what we are talking about? The hate that comes to you, the distress that comes to you when somebody bothers you, when somebody does something wrong, brings sadness, worry, pain. All that is lack of love. Lack of love, because God said, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). A person who does not keep God’s commandments does not love God for the Word of God tells you that love is a force that lifts you above the human dimension.

For instance, a person hates you. The Bible says, “Pray for them that hate you” (Matthew 5:44). Now tell me: have you been able to pray for those who hate you? Some people pray, “…let his prayer become sin” (Psalm 109:7). I have seen people actually pray the 109th Psalm for people who hurt them; and they feel like they are doing it righteously. “Let his prayer become sin and let so and so happen to him and his children be destroyed.” You ask this question: why was such a psalm written in the Bible? Let’s see what it says. Verse 7, “When he shall be judged, let him be condemned: and let his prayer become sin. 8 Let his days be few; and let another take his office. 9 Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow. 10 Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.” This is one of the reasons why some people say they don’t believe the Bible. Do you know what this is saying? This is a prophecy of what is going to happen to those who hate God’s people. Instead of saying, “Let this be, let this be,” it says, “This is what shall be, and this shall be, and that shall be.” It is laying out the things that come upon those who hate God’s people. It is not saying that you must pray that, “You should do this to them, God. You should kill their children. You should do so and so.” That is not it.

So when you have the love of God in you, you are going to say, “Lord God, have mercy upon those who hate me and upon those who despise me and those who persecute me.” You will be genuinely able to pray for them. God said, “By your phileo love, pull yourself up into agape. I wondered at it. How am I going to turn my phileo into agape? Then, I began to think. You have a child, you have a brother, you have a friend who is bad and does all kinds of wickedness. They catch him and are judging him and you pray, “Lord, have mercy upon him.” Your brother, your child. It is somebody’s brother; it is somebody’s child; and if you can feel bowels of compassion for your own, then take that and look at him and say, “It is another human being. Lord God, have mercy upon him.”

I look at Scott Peterson, who killed his pregnant wife and dump her in the bay, and I see a wretched person. My God, all this judgment coming down upon him! But then, he is a human being, he is a soul. If he were your brother, how would you feel about him? Tell me the truth. Would you say, “Kill him!”? No. You would begin to say, “Lord God, he is guilty. He is wicked, he is vile, he is bad. Save the sinner. Have mercy upon him.” This is where love becomes powerful.

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, July 2005, pg. 42-43)

Thought for today: A person who does not keep God’s commandments does not love God for the Word of God tells you that love is a force that lifts you above the human dimension.

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Keep the Commandments

Posted in Christian Walk, tagged , , , on July 27, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Revelation 12:17

Who is it that “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ?” If you say that He is talking about the Ten Commandments, then you do not really understand the Scriptures, because the Bible tells me that those who “keep the commandments of God” are those who obey Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. John 14:23, “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” The reason I said this verse could not mean the Ten Commandments is because no man could keep the Ten Commandments. If the Ten Commandments could have been kept by even one man of the Old Testament, then Jesus would not have come, for it would not have been necessary for Him to come. Jesus came and gave them a new commandment that they should “love one another.” The Lord said, “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” “The commandments” then could only mean that Jesus Christ is saying that accepting Jesus as your Saviour and accepting the Blood of Jesus Christ make you love one another and make you “keep the commandments of God.”

The whole commandment of God is embodied in the one commandment, LOVE. When the Pharisees asked Jesus, “Which is the great commandment?” He said, “Thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” and “thou shalt LOVE thy neighbour as thyself.” He said that this is “the first and great commandment.” Matthew 22:36-39 says, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” The keeping of God’s law is the accepting of Jesus Christ as your Saviour and walking in truth and “the testimony of Jesus Christ.”

(Excerpt from The Book of Revelation, Volume 2, pages 42-43)

Thought for today: We keep the Commandments of God when we obey Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

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“For My Two Eyes”

Posted in Love of God, tagged , , , , on March 13, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[Printable version]

Scripture reading: Judges 16:22-30

I hear God Almighty speaking to us about our eyes. You see, when the Philistines caught Samson after he gave out his secret to Delilah, they slapped a hot sword across his eyes and singed out his eyes. They put him as an animal to grind corn. As he was grinding, he said, “Oh, God.” Now he could see. Do you remember the poem The Blind Plowman? “He took mine eyes that I might see.” Samson said, “O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.” Amen. Then, when the boy led him into the arena, they were laughing at him, “Look at the man, the mighty giant that used to kill us.” They didn’t know that the man’s hair was growing back. They didn’t know that repentance brings back your hair. What did God do that for? He did it to bring the man to repentance.

Oh, God loves us so much. We should be ashamed of ourselves and I will tell you why. We don’t love our children as much as God loves us. We love the nice pretty ones that do well more than we love those that don’t do well. We are disgusted with some of them because they don’t do well and they do us bad and evil. God loves the bad ones just as much as He loves the good ones. His entire plan is to bring you out of the darkness into the light and so He will do all kinds of things to you. Yes. He will sting you, He will bite you, He will cut you, He will bounce you to bring you unto Himself. Then, what a glorious morning when He hugs you and says, “I’ve got you!” Hallelujah. That is the love of God that is greater far than tongue or pen could ever tell. Oh, what a God we serve, far beyond our conscious understanding!

We can’t understand God. How could He love a wretched person like me? I look at my own life. Why am I here? It is only because of God; nothing else but God’s mercy. And He wants me to do something; He brings me here because He knows I will do that which He wants me to do. Amen.

You know the stubborn child that you have, the “bad one”? Sometimes if that quality is turned to God, that quality will be glorious in the sight of God. God sees some of us rebellious but the rebellion is the good nature that God put in you to be able to stand and withstand in a battle. The devil takes a hold of that good nature and turns it into rebellion. So, we see the rebellious one and oh, we are against the rebellious one. But, how beautiful he is when he turns to God. Hallelujah!

So, Samson began to find God and he said, “…O God,… for my two eyes,” and then he pulled down the temple of Dagon. Oh, my goodness, what a beautiful thought! Samson called unto the LORD, and said, “O Lord GOD, remember me…” (Judges 16:28). My God, what a prayer! Think of your heart saying, “Oh, God, remember me. Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, I pray thee. Strengthen me, I pray Thee, only this once, oh God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.”

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, May 2009, pg. 27)

Thought for today: Oh, what a God we serve, far beyond our conscious understanding!

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