“And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.” {Luke 10:25}
So many times so many of us get caught up in loving God through works. We forget that God is a God of Love, and an emotional God. We forget that He is looking for love, and is hungering for our time with Him. We get so caught up in trying to please God by going to church, being nice to our neighbors, and paying our tithes, that we forget He is waiting for us to spend some time with Him too. We meet all these expectations our church society puts upon us and we feel that that’s all there is – and we’ve met God’s expectations of us. But when it comes to loving God, really loving Him, where He would feel our love in return through our worship and praise to Him, we don’t know how to start. We know we should be praying. We know we should be spending time with Him. Yet, when we do make the time for it, we blank out. It’s like the whole force of the universe is against us and we can’t find a single thought or even a single word to say to Him. We really don’t know what to say to Him.
It’s really very simple. Prophet Jeremiah penned God’s thought on this. The Lord said:
And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. {Jeremiah 29:13}
Moses actually said this first to the children of Israel. He told them:
But from there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him with all your heart and all your soul. {Deuteronomy 4:29}
In order to know what to say to the Lord, and to know who He is and find where He is, we need to just come simply with all of our heart. We need to look inside of ourselves first and talk to the Lord through it. He is an emotional God, therefore we must talk to Him through our hearts and our souls – our emotions. Don’t come to Him trying to figure Him out. You will definitely run out of words to express to Him if you try to talk to Him that way. He is the most powerful, all knowing God, how does one talk to Him? There’s no way we can, if we try to come with our own understanding and try to see our position before a most powerful God who created the entire universe. There is no way we can. We will definitely become speechless. But if we just come simply with our hearts then it will be easy.
The Book of Proverbs states that the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord and He searches the inward part of who we are.
“The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts of the belly.” {Proverbs 20:27}
The Lord knows everything in our hearts, our soul, and our minds. He can hear us, feel us, and see us wherever we are. We just need to talk to Him. Just look into yourself and feel after Him. Start and begin from your heart.
You don’t need to come with preliminary prayers or chants, or a groan or even lighting of a candle. Just talk from your heart. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and just feel with your heart and your soul and your spirit, and speak to Him.
I tell you if we do this, if we all just come with our heart and soul, we will never run out of words to say to Him – and many of us will probably and most likely get our healing instantly.
So many of us hide stuff from the Lord, as if He can’t see what we’re hiding from Him. We have so many pent up feelings and emotions we’ve harbored and lugged around in our soul all these years of living for God, that we’re bogged down and wearied by them. The Lord knows about this and said in His word:
Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. {Matthew 11:28-30}
If we actually come and just empty our soul to the Lord and trust in His great love for us, and give Him our true selves, a lot of us will get healed on the spot.
This is really what the Lord is looking for when He said to love Him with all of our hearts, mind and soul. He wants us to be true and honest with Him. He wants us all to have an open and loving relationship with Him. The Psalmist states,
“Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.” {Psalm 51:6}
He hates it when we hide things from Him, because He loves us so much and knows absolutely everything about us already. We cannot hide anything from Him. True worship and true love for Jesus Christ is coming to Him with all of our hearts, and just emptying our soul to Him. God is looking for this from us, to come to Him with everything that is within us because this is true worship. He tells us,
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. {John 4:24}
So the next time you’re running out of words to say to the Lord and you know He’s after you about spending some time with Him, just look deep down into your soul, breathe deeply, and say to the Lord whatever it is that you see in your heart. If you’re too embarrassed to share it with Him, tell Him so. If you have sinned and need to confess and ask for His forgiveness, do it. The sooner you get it off your chest the sooner you will feel better about it. No one is perfect. Even the righteous will sin. The Bible states,
“For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” {Ecclesiastes 7:20}
Apostle Paul puts it this way,
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” {Romans 3:23}
And if you do not confess to Jesus what you have done wrong and do not ask for His forgiveness, then you’re hurting yourself. You will continue to be unhappy. There is no one who sins before the Lord who is happy. No one. Find me a sinner who is happy. There is no sinner who is happy. They might tell you they’re happy, and you can even almost believe them they’re so good at looking happy. But when they’re in their beds all alone at night, and in their own thoughts with no one else around, believe me an honest sinner with an honest heart cannot be happy. The only way to happiness is to confess those sins away to Jesus Christ and have Him take them away. The sooner you confess to the Lord your sins the better you will feel about it. By confessing to the Lord we are getting our sins out of our lives. We may not have the power to get rid of them, but He does. Through confessions and repentance we give Him the permission to come and take our sins away from us.
And why live with your sins day in and day out when there’s someone who loves you more than any one on this entire earth? In the history of mankind no one loves you more than Jesus Christ. He has come to save us from our sins. He has not come to condemn us, but to save us.
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.” {John 3:17}
So freely hand Him your sins, every single bit of them and start being happy. Keeping our sins from the Lord will only prolong our miseries. By talking to the Lord and repenting and confessing them, we are taking away the power of the sting and poison of sin to destroy us. God knows the power of sin and what it can do to us to destroy us. Sin will do nothing else but destroy us. It doesn’t matter how much pleasure you get from it, sin will eventually destroy you. There are no ifs, ands or buts about sin, except to get rid of them. What a beautiful thing that our God who loves us the best and the most has made a way for us to get rid of every single sin and poison from our lives! Through Jesus Christ we can be free of them. We can live a victorious and happy life free from the power of sin, simply by confessing, repenting, and talking to Him about it.
What does this mean? Will it mean we will never sin again? No. It will mean every time we sin or are tempted, we have the most powerful being – God, through Jesus Christ – who we can connect to and get power from to overcome sin – to be free from sin and to live victoriously over it. How? It’s through coming to the Lord everyday, every moment, and talking to Him about our sins, about our struggle. It’s through loving Him with all of our heart, our soul, and our mind in prayer, without hiding anything from Him.
Loving God is very simple – come with an honest heart. Spend some time with Him. Talk to Him. Be real to Him. Be who you really are without reservations. Know that you are loved very much and are accepted. There is nothing you can do to win Christ’s love for you. He has loved you before you even knew Him. All He is asking from us is simply to respond back to that love by telling Him so. That’s it. Just come with your heart saying back to Him, “I love you, Jesus. I thank you with all of my heart for loving me. Please forgive me for all of my shortcomings, for all of my sinful thoughts and desires that were not pleasing before you. I repent of them. Please forgive me and cleanse me from all of my unrighteousness. I love you and I want to live for you.” That’s it. Just say what you desire in your heart to the Lord and you are already “loving” Him. You don’t need to climb Mount Sinai to find God and to be loved back by Him. Simply opening up our hearts to Him and talking to Him will already make Him feel loved.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” {Psalm 139:23-24}
“Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” {Psalm 16:11}
“Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.” {Psalm 19:12}
“Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness.” {Psalm 143:10}
Prayer
Jesus, thank You Father for Your great love for me. Thank You for Your grace and mercy and always being ready to forgive me whenever I come to You ready to open my heart up to You.
Father, please help me to keep loving You. Help me to keep coming to You and keep talking to You. Help me to trust in Your great love upon me and not hide anything from You. Give me faith to talk to You, Jesus and come to You with my heart. You are always there, always loving me…always waiting for me to come to You. Please Jesus, forgive me for keeping my heart from sharing with You everything that’s in there. Give me faith Lord, please give me faith in Your great love for me and help me believe with all my heart that You are there listening to me. Let me see You please Jesus. Please Father, let me see You. Help me to believe that there is nothing I need to be afraid of in coming to You. You know everything about me and you still love me. I can talk to You about anything and everything that is in my heart. Help me to stay in Your presence and know You, Father. Help me to love You. I pray this in Your wonderful name, Jesus. Thank You, Father. Amen.
Repost from June 2017: How To Love The Lord
