Tag: All My Heart

‘And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’’ Mark 12:30(NLT)

‘Don’t team up with those who are unbelievers. How can righteousness be a partner with wickedness? How can light live with darkness? ‘ 2 Corinthians 6:14(NLT)

‘A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.’ Ecclesiastes 4:12(NLT)

2 Cor. 6:14 (TLB) “Don’t be teamed with those who do not love the Lord, for what do the people of God have in common with the people of sin? How can light live with darkness?” It really does not make sense for believers to get attached to or marry unbelievers because it is God’s Presence in the marriage equation that unites and solidifies the union. The thrill is usually short-lived but the pain and sorrow lasts longer. 

The image included is to help you visualize the indispensable role of Jesus in the marriage equation. At the base of the triangle, the distance between the man and the woman is wide. But as the man and woman move closer to Jesus, the distance between them shortens. God’s ideal is for the man and the woman to become one with Christ. When this happens, the distance between them disappears. That is why God’s Word says in Eccl. 4:12 (TLB) “…a triple-braided cord is not easily broken.” Christ is the third person in the relationship and He unites and binds it together. 

If love is going to last I must listen with all my heart, I must forgive with all my heart, I must be humble with all my heart, and I must love God with all my heart. However, the truth is that none of us can do this by our own strength. We need God’s help. For people that have a challenge listening because they love the sound of their own voice, you need to ask God for help to listen with all your heart. Some of us need to ask the Lord to help us forgive with all our hearts and ask for the grace to be humble with all our hearts. Or perhaps your prayer today is to ask God for help to love Him with all your heart. The truth is none of us can do these things in our strength. Take loving God, for example, no one can come to God unless He draws him or her. The objective is to be one with Christ and then listening, forgiving, being humble, and loving becomes possible.

Prayer: Father, give me the grace to listen with all my heart, to forgive with all my heart, to be humble with all my heart, and to love You with all my heart, in Jesus’ Name. Amen!

from All My Heart

‘And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ ‘ Mark 12:30(NLT)

‘Unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Unless the Lord protects a city, guarding it with sentries will do no good.’ Psalms 127:1(NLT)

Still on the thought; each time there is a space between you and the person you are in a relationship with and you are faced with the question, who should move. The answer is you. Now let us take this thought a step further, into God’s heart. What God wants is that both of you will become mature in God and will both collide with each other on the seat. That both of you will be so into your relationship that once there is a space in whatever area, you both will collide in the space moving to close the gap. Our marriages will be so beautiful if we just obey God. 

Marriage is one institution where two people have the golden opportunity of making themselves the happiest on earth. But in many cases, couples make themselves the most miserable people on earth. I said to my wife some time ago, “choose one; are we going to fight or are we going to be happy?” And she said, “let us be happy”. So we forgot about “the issues” and we closed the gap between us. Believe me, it is as simple as that. Human beings like to complicate things. I pray your marriage will be filled with happiness.

If love is to grow and love is to last in our relationships, we must listen with all our hearts, we must forgive with all our hearts, we must be humble with all our hearts, and we must Love God with all our hearts. I must love God with all my heart. You have to personalize this commitment because everyone must take responsibility for his or her actions in a relationship. I must love God with all my heart. Mark 12:30 “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength” [with emphasis]. 

Marriage was and is still God’s idea. Marriage was not man’s idea. And the closer you get to God, the closer you would get to your spouse. Nothing else solidifies and sustains relationships like intimacy with God. If God is not the priority to the two people in a relationship, they can never be intimate. It is a mistake to think that as long as two people are together and they love each other, intimacy will happen. Anyone that has been married long enough will tell you that it does not work like that. The only thing that unites and solidifies is God. Psalm 127:1 [ERV] “If it is not the Lord who builds a house, the builders are wasting their time. If it is not the Lord who watches over the city, the guards are wasting their time.”

Prayer: Father, I declare in the Name of Jesus that I [say your name] will love the Lord, my God, with all my heart, all my soul, all my mind, and all my strength for all my days. Amen! 

from All My Heart

‘Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. ‘ 1 Corinthians 13:4-5(NLT)

‘Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. ‘ Philippians 2:3(NLT)

Today, we will continue with the closing story from yesterday. It would do us a lot of good if we spend more time with our thoughts and more often too. That is why meditating on God’s Word is so powerful. Think about that. So the seat that was between the couple at the end of the pastor’s message was now filled and the question was, who moved? The answer is, the person that should move is the person that is closer to God. The person that should move is the person that remembers this Scripture – Phil.2:3 “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves”. 

The person that should move is the person that is more submitted to God. And in most cases, you would discover that that is the more spiritually matured person. Spiritual maturity has nothing to do with how frequent you are in church. Spiritual maturity is about being submitted to the authority of God’s Word. Imagine a Christian couple that whenever there is a dispute, the woman who is more frequent in church activities and speaks in tongues louder than her husband never apologizes. But the man is the one always apologizing. Who would you say is closer to God? 

The truth is, the person that yields to God is the more spiritually mature person, not the person that prays the loudest. Every time you ask yourself the question “who should move”, the answer is you! If your excuse for not moving is because you moved yesterday, then you have missed the point. If you are keeping score in marriage, you have already lost. But how many times should I move? You move every time there is space between both of you. 

Inevitably, over time, in your communication and in your intimacy there is going to be a seat between you. That is just how life is but the question is who should move? Will there be days when you both face different sides of the room and are tugging at the duvet? Of course! Every time you are faced with the question of who should move, the answer is you! 

Prayer: Precious Holy Spirit, mature me in love that is patient and kind, love that does not keep a record of wrong or is boastful. Help me have a truly submitted heart, in Jesus’ Name. Amen!

from All My Heart

‘Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. ‘ Philippians 2:3(NLT)

‘Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud ‘ 1 Corinthians 13:4(NLT)

Selfishness is a huge destroyer. A person cannot be selfish and humble at the same time. It does not work that way. Selfishness is one of the major cankerworms destroying the fabric of relationships today. Phil.2:3 “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves”. Thinking of the other person as better than yourself does not mean you are not important. God’s Word is simply telling us to think of the other person as more important. 

Treat your wife or husband as more important than yourself. A practical expression of this would be, if you get home before your spouse and you discover that there is only one piece of meat left in the stew, you leave it for the other person. Husbands, if you can do this for your wife, she will bless you, and you will be greatly rewarded. I am not saying this should be your sole objective for being unselfish. Your relationships are not a transaction. God says “consider the other person as better than yourself”. 

It is good to do things for each other but we are also doing it because that is what God requires of you and I. And because God and His Word is the focus, you find that it really has nothing to do with what the other person does or does not do. While preaching, a pastor noticed that a certain couple that would normally sit with their arms around each other in church now had a seat in between them. And as God would have it, the pastor was preaching about 1Cor.13:4 “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud”. God worked on their hearts and by the time the pastor looked up the space between them was gone and they were holding each other again. The question is who moved – the man or the woman? I think that what matters most is not necessarily who moved, but that the space between them is gone. 

Prayer: Father, help me not to be selfish but rather be humble and think of others as better than myself. Help me to do the things You require of me, in Jesus’ Name. Amen!

from All My Heart

‘Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.’ Ephesians 4:32(NLT)

If love is to last in our relationships, we must listen with all our hearts and forgive with all our hearts. In day two, we explained the difference between acceptance and forgiveness. However, some issues in marriage are actually forgiveness issues. Understand this; relationships are between two imperfect people. They are going to step on each other’s toes and say hurtful things sometimes. Someone is going to be careless and be outright nasty but God wants us to forgive. Not with a part of our hearts but with ALL of our hearts. God wants you to forgive all with all!

Eph.4:32 “Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you” [with emphasis]. After reading this scripture, I said to the Lord, can this Scripture be adjusted from “forgiving one another” to perhaps read, “not offending one another”. But God knows that we are imperfect people living in a broken world. God knows that it is impossible for us not to offend each other so He says to forgive. “Marriage is a union of two great forgivers” – Anon. You have to forgive and keep on forgiving. Make up your mind in advance to forgive no matter what and to forgive with all your heart.

For love to last, the third thing I must do is be humble with all my heart. You and I need to be unselfish with all our hearts because it is a subsect of being humble. Selfishness is a major destroyer of marriages. When two people in a marriage label things as ‘mine – do not touch!’, there are bound to be issues. The man decides to drink a cup of coffee and the wife insists he must not use her mug. Or the woman is eating her dinner and the man insists she must not use his spoon. As simple as that is, sometimes it can get worse because it magnifies selfishness. 

The painful thing is that even when you confront some people with their selfishness and try to help them see how it is destroying their relationship. Sometimes such people choose self over their relationships and the other person ends up hurt. Sometimes we think that because we are Christians and God hates divorce, we can do anything we want. It is plain foolish to live like that. If you insist on being selfish, you will terminate your marriage yourself. Selfishness is a huge destroyer; like a cankerworm.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, help me listen with all my heart, forgive with all my heart and be totally selfless in my relationships, in Jesus’ Name. Amen! 

from All My Heart

‘Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory. ‘ Romans 15:7(NLT)

The second thing that you and I must do if love is to last in our relationships is we must forgive with all of our hearts. The challenge most times is we confuse acceptance with forgiveness. Acceptance is not forgiveness. There is a difference between acceptance and forgiveness. In every relationship, you can expect that there will be acceptance issues and there will be forgiveness issues. But you need to see an acceptance issue as an acceptance issue and a forgiveness issue as a forgiveness issue.

For instance, in a marriage relationship, the man repeatedly leaves the toilet seat up. Then his wife says to him, “I forgive you for not putting the toilet seat down”. That is not a forgiveness issue. It is an acceptance issue; sometimes he will remember to put the toilet seat back down but sometimes he would not. Just accept it! I like to squeeze my toothpaste tube from the bottom towards the outlet. But my wife just grabs the tube and squeezes it from the middle. I have tried to explain the importance of order even in things like the toothpaste tube. But that did not change anything. I chose not to get upset over toothpaste, so I went out to the store and bought two tubes of toothpaste – one for her and one for myself. 

I admit this is funny but the reality is these kinds of things have a way of getting under your skin in marriage. There was peace in the house for a while until one day I found my toothpaste tube squeezed from the middle. Then I decided to hide my toothpaste but then I grew tired of always having to wait for the coast to be clear before I access it. There is only one solution, accept it as your portion until you see Jesus. I had to admit to myself that it was an acceptance issue. 

Should your husband remember your birthday? Well yes, but he probably forgot because he was thinking hard about how to take care of you. Rom.15:7 “Therefore, accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory” [with emphasis]. When we accept each other, God is glorified. So make up your mind to accept the other person and give God glory.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to accept and forgive the people You have put in my life with all my heart, in Jesus’ Name. Amen!

from All My Heart

‘You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.’ 1 Peter 1:22(NLT)

‘Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. ‘ James 1:19(NLT)

1 Peter 1:22 “You must keep on loving with all your heart.” [CEV, with emphasis]

Paul says, “You must keep on loving with all your heart”. When I read this passage of scripture, I immediately asked God for help. I asked for help because I realized that what God is instructing us to do is to love, not with a part of our hearts but with all of our hearts. Many questions also sprang up in my head. How can I do this? How do I keep on loving with all my heart for a lifetime? How do I make love last? What choices do I have to make? What do I have to do if love is going to last? I learned [and will be sharing with you] that there are four things you and I must do to make love last in our relationships. The first thing I must do to make love last is, I must listen with all my heart. Interestingly, listening is one thing that a lot of people do not like doing. Some people are even more interested in talking because they enjoy hearing their own voice. 

However, our relationships will be so different if we would listen to one another. James 1:19 “Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” If only couples would implement these three things – be slow to speak, be slow to get angry, and be quick to listen. The depth of guidance God gives us in His Word is just amazing. God’s Word says, be quick to listen but sometimes we struggle with listening because we really do not know how to listen. One of the keys to listening is you have to listen to people like they want to say it and not like you want to hear it. We often prefer that people would talk the way we want to hear it. But God’s Word is telling us to listen to people the way they want to tell it.

In the marriage relationship for example, you have to listen to your spouse the way he or she prefers to talk. In most cases the man is very direct with this communication while the woman loves to tell stories. Women mostly thrive on telling the details that led up to the event and beyond. The way most men will respond to the question, “how was your day”, is very different from the way most women will respond. But regardless of who is doing the listening and how the storyteller wants to tell it, to listen with all your heart means to listen to the story the way the storyteller wants to tell it. The good news for you and I is that we can learn to listen with all our heart.

Prayer: Holy Spirit, give me a patient heart and a listening heart, in Jesus’ Name. Amen!

from All My Heart