| Good Morning Everyone, Our theme for this month: “You are loved” Our Bible verse for today: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30 (CSB) Our thought for today: “Get in the habit of dealing with God about everything.” Have you ever been in love? I mean really, deeply in love. Head-over-heals, totally infatuated, can’t-get-you-out-of-my-mind in love. This person fills your thoughts when you’re apart, and you’re totally content when you’re together. You love to do things for them, and you love it when they do things for you. Your heart is so full and overflowing with love for this person that it seems like you’re going to burst. I mean, you are seriously in love! Okay, maybe that sounds a little sappy, a little too much like teenage puppy love. Maybe you haven’t felt that kind of love for another person in a long, long time. But work with me here, play along. Imagine yourself in love with God like that. That’s the kind of love Jesus was talking about in Mark 12:30, and He was saying that it should describe our love relationship with God – loving Him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. That is how God loves us, by the way. And it should be our goal to love Him back in the same way. But how do we achieve that? Isn’t that the very reason I’m writing devotional messages on this theme to begin with, because we have such difficulty experiencing that kind of love with God? The great devotional writer Oswald Chambers suggested that we should train ourselves to get in the habit of dealing with God about everything. We should work to establish a running dialogue with Him about all the things that are going on in our lives, big and small – intentionally including Him in our life moment-by-moment. When we do that, we slowly begin to become aware of His constant presence with us. That then develops into a sense of familiarity and intimacy that fills our heart and mind with Him. Over time, He then becomes a noticeable presence in our lives and we no longer feel right or content if we don’t sense Him with us like that. Our thoughts then keep getting drawn back to Him. But that takes some work on our part. We have to be intentional about it. We have to want that kind of relationship with Him and we have to make the effort to develop it. The good news is that it can be done. And the primary reason it can be done is because God Himself wants that even more than you do. He wants to be included in every moment of your life. He wants your thoughts to continually return to Him. He wants you to love Him like He loves you. If you make the effort, He will gladly reward that effort with an increased awareness of Himself in your life. I encourage you to get in the habit of dealing with God about everything. God Bless, Pastor Jim |
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