What does it mean to love ?

 In order to understand real love ❤, we must look to Jesus. Look at Jesus at the wedding of Cana 🤵🏾👰🏽. He is an invited guest, the wedding went out of wine, Jesus turned the water into wine for the benefit of the couple, saved them from embarrassment. 

Look at Jesus at Jacob's well. He is tired and hungry  after a long journey, a woman came to draw water at the well, Jesus put aside His own need to speak to the  Samaritan woman and offered her the water of life.

What does it mean to love ❤? Look at Jesus being arrested by the guards, Peter took out his sword, cut off the ear 👂🏾 of one of the guards 💂🏾‍♂️, Jesus told Peter to put away his sword, then Jesus with His hands bound, took the ear 👂🏾 and healed the guard ❤

What does it mean to love ❤? Look at Jesus, bleeding, wounded and carrying the heavy cross , seeing some women crying for Him 😭. Look at Him stopping and telling the women don't cry for me, but cry for yourselves and your children. He forgot about His own pain to address the women 

What does it mean to love ❤? Look at Jesus on the cross, crown of thorn on His head, being barely able to breath and dying. Yet when He heard the dying thief on the cross say Lord remember me, Jesus answered today, I tell you, you will be with me in paradise.  Jesus ignored His own sufferings to save a life ❤

So what did we learn today 🤔? What does it mean to love ❤? To love is to continually putting aside self, your own needs in order to reach out to others, to understand another and to help another. Love is never about what you receive, but how much you are willing to sacrifice for another at the expense of your self . Learn to love like Jesus 🙏🏾

An infinite sacrifice!

 We spoke about love ❤, true love being lacking in our world 🌍 because we don't understand what it means to love. We are selfish in our "love". In our so called love for others, we really put ourselves first. I will only love you if you love me first, I will only sacrifice for you if you sacrifice for me. But today we want to look at real love, what is real love about ❤🤔? In order to understand real love, we must look at the One who is love, the Lord Jesus Christ and learn from Him. Let us behold Christ today and let us ask Him for the power to be like Him in this life

Let us behold Christ on His throne 🤴🏾 as He sees Adam and Eve have fallen into sin and are facing eternal death 💀. Let us behold Christ as He offers to take their place, as He offers to empty Himself of His Divine power, to come to the earth as a man, a man of sorrow, tempted man and to suffer the punishment that I deserve, that you deserve. Let us behold Christ,  the eternal Son of God as He become a babe 🤱🏾 in the hands of His creature ,Mary. Let us behold Christ as a child being under the care of human parents. Let us behold Christ,  the Son of the eternal, as He is being taught by His human creatures to speak, to learn and to do different things. What a sacrifice, what humility, what love!

Let us behold Christ as He faces temptation from Satan 😈, a being He created Holy but who rebelled against Him. Let us behold Christ as He is starving to death in the wilderness. The Creator of all things suffering from want of food and being tempted. Let us behold Christ as He goes around healing the sick, mending the brokenhearted, feeding the hungry, going around doing good. Let us behold Christ as the people whom He came to save accuse Him of having a demon, persecute and harass Him. Let us behold Christ having to escape from one place to another in order to continue doing good . Let us behold Christ, what a sacrifice, what love !

Let us behold Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, as He facing the supreme test 😥. Will He lay down His life to save sinful, wicked, selfish, ungrateful and foolish humanity?  And what life will He lay down 🤔? Eternal life. He was facing the laying down of a life of eternal bliss, the love of The Father, the adoration of the angels and other worlds, the life of being God . No one will ever be asked to do such sacrifice and what did Christ choose ? He chose to lay down His life for me and you, sinners, ungrateful and foolish sinners. Christ basically say if I have to die to save them, then i will die. I love them so much that I would rather not exist forever so that they may live 😮

I will take their death, eternal death so that they may have my life. What love ❤! Amazing love ❤! Jesus gave up all for us and all He ask us is to give up the evil things that are destroying us. You cannot love your sins more than Jesus loved the Father. You cannot love your alcohol, your movies, your anger, your lust more than Jesus loved the Father and yet Jesus was willing to be separated from the Father,  from eternal bliss to save you, to save me. This is love, this is sacrifice. To love is to sacrifice. If you love Christ you will sacrifice all that is necessary to be with Him. To love others is to sacrifice for their wellbeing. The One who loves most will sacrifice most.

Let us then friends behold Christ, behold His love, His sacrifice and let us ask God to do all to make us like Jesus. Lord, help me to love like Jesus, help me to live like Jesus. No love without sacrifice, for to love is to sacrifice ❤💔🙏🏾

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 

John 15:13

Looking for romantic love?

 You are not alone. Many people in our society are looking for romantic love ❤. Someone to spend the rest of their lives with, someone to rely on, to call their own. The problem is they can't find one. Why is it so hard to find love ❤😔🤔?

It's hard to find love because we have a wrong understanding of love and approach things the wrong way 🚷. What does it mean to be loved? To be loved is to be known, accepted, and appreciated. To be loved is not simply an emotion.

One thing that destroy love and make our relationships hard is sex before marriage 🚫. Sex before is purely based on lust. Lust is not concerned with knowing the other person but is only concerned with self satisfaction. Lust sees the other person as an object to be used. Once you start your relationship that way, it becomes difficult for you to know what true love is. You may feel cheap after the fact, you feel devalued and you may become frustrated with your boyfriend/girlfriend because you feel like they are not interested in the real you but only your body.  Lust destroy love in the heart 💔. And this brokenness carry itself into marriage

So now in marriages we find it hard to understand each other because we never knew each other in the first place. We were selfish, consumed with lust, consumed with the desire to satisfy ourselves and not the other. But it's not too late to change. God created marriage 🤵🏾👰🏽 to be a joy, to represent the union of Christ and the church 💒. So how do I make my marriage beautiful and a blessing 🤔? I must start to make it a priority to understand, appreciate and cherish my spouse. I must no more make my own satisfaction a priority but my spouse. The first question I must ask is who is my spouse? Do I really know the other person ? What does she like, what does she doesn't like ?

I must seek to know my spouse's love language and do my best to do it. How can I make the life of my spouse a blessing 🤵🏾👰🏽? I need to stop focusing less on the negatives and more on the positives. For 30 days I can write a note to my spouse and each day tell her something I love, admire about her. I can also write a note to her daily telling her what I appreciate about her. See the thing is love awakens love ❤. When you start showing someone true love, they will respond and true love is not a statement,  true love is showing someone that you are interested in knowing them for who she is , not who you wish she was. True love is about showing someone you appreciate them.

Once someone start to feel loved and appreciated,  it will soften their hearts ❤ and love will start to flow out. It takes time for true love to develop. That's why sex before marriage is so destructive, love is not the goal but lust.  Courtship is the Bible way. When you meet someone you are interested in, pray to God about it, ask God for His will. When you get with that person, set boundaries, make it clear no sex before marriage. If they truly want to be with you, they will accept and this way you will root out the selfish ones. Then seek to know, understand and appreciate that person for who he is. Dont try to change the person, but try to love them for who they are

You can start your marriage over, make loving the other person your priority . The problem with marriage in our society is that true love is not known or understood. But you can start today. Love is patient, so be patient with your spouse, ask your spouse about his or her day. Ask your spouse about the things that make her happy 😊. Ask your spouse what can you do to be a better spouse.  Demonstrate to your spouse that you are on his side, not against him, you desire what's good for her and not just seeking your own desires. Daily think about the good things that your spouse do and not the things they are not doing. Love awakens love

So friends, you can have a great romantic relationship with your spouse, you can start today. But you must willing to sacrifice self, you must be willing to focus more on knowing, understanding and appreciating your spouse each and every day. True love is other focused, show your spouse you love him or her, show your spouse you understand him or her and soon, very soon your home will become a little heaven on earth. Make your marriage lovely 🤵🏾👰🏽, avoid sin at all cost and ask the Lord for strength to daily be the spouse He created you to be, the spouse your husband or wife is happy to come home to.  If you want to be loved, you must be loving and love seek the best of others. Pray friends

Do not be discouraged

 The Christian life is a battle and a march. The Christian is a soldier 💂🏾‍♂️ in the armies of the Lord. He is engaged in warfare against spiritual forces who never gives up, who are never discouraged and so we must never give up or discouraged. 

We must be never be discouraged in getting closer to Christ. Daily when we wake up 🛏, let us seek the presence of our Savior in prayer , in Bible reading. We must never be discouraged in making communion with Christ our first duty. Christ must be first on our thoughts 

We must never be discouraged in displaying Christian character, love ❤, mercy, compassion, goodness. We must never be discouraged in loving one another, no matter how unworthy the other person may be. God loves us while we were yet sinners, let love one another  ❤.

We must never be discouraged in spreading the gospel. Reject the nonsense of not discussing religion 👎🏽, ask God for wisdom, spread the gospel at every opportunity,  no matter the opposition.  Make aggressive warfare against the culture's falsehoods and lift up Christ🤗 

We must never be discouraged in our walk with Christ. No matter what difficulties come your way, keep pressing on, keep moving forward in faith  towards the heavenly Canaan 🚶🏿‍♂️. Be a good soldier of the cross 💂🏾‍♂️ , fight the battles of the Lord and be thou faithful until the end. No surrender, never give up, never surrender 🙏🏾

Galatians 6:9 

Let us not be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not .

Come to Jesus

 Come to Jesus no matter who you are. For Jesus loves ❤you even as you are. Come to Jesus no matter what you have done, for while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Jesus loves you despite what you have done ❤

Friends, don't wait until you get yourself right before you can come to Jesus 🚫. You can never get yourself right, it's a deception of the Devil 😈, but come to Jesus and He will make you right and cover you with His righteousness

The Lord Jesus is merciful, and is not willing that any should perish, that you should perish 😢. Come to Him and find rest, peace, love for your soul. Don't delay friends, the world offers nothing but misery and grief 😞

What is holding from coming to Jesus 🤔? A boyfriend/girlfriend, a job, guilt, fear, your past, and addiction, a bad experience? Bring them all to Jesus in prayer and He will surely give you the victory. 

So you ask, how do I come to Jesus 🤔? You come to Jesus through prayer, by confessing your sins and say Lord save me at all cost, for I perish 😢 and the ever merciful Savior will save you and cleans you from all your sins. Jesus will surely give you rest, come 🤗

Matthew 11:28

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

How can I betray you my Lord and sin against you 🤔 ?

 How can I betray you Lord when you are the One who gave me life ? How can I betray you Lord when you knew me in my mother's womb 🤰🏾? How can I betray you Lord when you watched over me as I took my first steps 👼🏽? 

How can I betray you Lord when you have kept me from my youth up ? How can I betray you my Lord when you have blessed me so abundantly? You gave me  health, family, friends, job etc.. How can I betray you and sin against you 🤔?

Lord, you have been my greatest and dearest friend ❤. You know me intimately, you know all my flaws and yet you love me with an everlasting love. You know all things I have done and yet you still love me. How can i sin against you 😢?

How can I sin against you Lord, when you came down from heaven, lived a life of suffering and died a cruel death just to save me 😢? That's how much I'm worth to you Lord, you laid down your life to save me ? 

Lord, how can I sin against such a wonderful God as you ? You who are so faithful, so loving and are always ready to hear me when I call  upon you, you are never too busy for me, you are never too far from me.

Lord, you are my true and faithful friend. Help me to be true and faithful to you every and until the end of my days. Help me to rather die than sin against such a loving God as you are. Lord I love you ❤, for you first loved me ❤🙏🏾.

Genesis 39:9

There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?

Forsaking the Lord 🤔? I must be insane 🤡

 I must be crazy to forsake the Lord, the source of all goodness, the source of life and yet that's exactly what the majority of us are doing, forsaking the Lord for created things, forsaking the Lord for foolishness 😧

I forsake the Lord when I love the world He has created more than Him. I must be crazy when I love my spouse 🤵🏾👰🏽more than God who gave her to me. I must be crazy to love my child 🤱🏾 more than the Lord who gave him to me.

I forsake the Lord when I care more about my job than Him who has provided me the job. I forsake the Lord when I care about my life more than the Lord of life Himself.  I forsake the Lord when I seek more after my own happiness than His glory 😔

I must be crazy to love money (a thing created by man, created by God) more than the Lord of host. I must be crazy when I love sex more than the God who made sex. I must be crazy when I love pleasure more than God.

I must be crazy to put anything or give anyone more importance in my life than the Creator God. And it is no wonder we are having a mental health epidemic in the land 🤕, the simple truth is we are insane, for we have forsaken the Lord to cherish whoredom, and seek our highest pleasures in created things 😣

So friends, we need a new mind, a mind that think rightly, a mind that put God in His rightful place in our lives. God must be supreme in our lives. Our prayer, Lord help me to forsake all idols and to cleave to you, for you are my hope 🙏🏾

Jeremiah 17:13

O LORD, the hope of Israel, all that forsake thee shall be ashamed, and they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living waters.