It’s Time to Declare Our Love

At this time of the year lovers are selecting gifts to please their sweethearts and children are busy cutting out paper hearts to send to their friends.

In the midst of all the activity do not let us neglect to declare our love for the Lord by offering Him a spiritual Valentine. Beyond all our gifts or service there is one Valentine that would please Him more than anything else we might offer and that is our hearts. No, not paper ones but the real thing. For when we offer Him our hearts we give Him our all. Thats what Issac Watts meant when he wrote,

“Were the whole realm of nature mine

That were a present far too small

Love so amazing, so divine

Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

1 John 4:10 “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins.”

How could we help but love Him! Yet there are many who do not return His love. This brought anguish to Francis of Assisi, when he thought of Calvary and realized so many refuse the Savior’s love. He was moved to travel the streets exclaiming “Love is not loved ! Love is not loved !” This is also the tragedy of 2012, for love is still being despised and rejected by many. But millions do love and cherish Him. Our hearts are His. At a time when the world is searching for love in all the wrong places, let us declare His Love to the world by loving one another as He first loved us.

1John 4:11 “Beloved if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

HAPPY ST. VALENTINE’S DAY

From an article published by Margaret Bass in 1985

We are in the midst of spiritual warfare and on the frontline of battle are our marriages. For if the enemy can defeat our marriages he has got an influence over our children, the strength of the local church (for churches are only as strong as the families in the church), the moral fiber of our society and last but not least, weakening the witness are marriages should be to the mystical union twixt Christ and His Bride, the church.

Our marriages are a love story, a drama played out on a stage of opposition from the enemy, the flesh, and the influence of a fallen world. But on that same stage is played out the greatest love story ever told. The story of a heroic Knight who left the glory of His palace to seek His beloved Bride, and rescue her by laying down his life willingly to save her from the hands of the opposition.

Act One: The potential Bride is created and the Father says it is very good.

Act Two: The Bride falls to the power of the enemy because of a choice pleasing to the flesh, resulting in a fallen world spiraling towards destruction.

Act Three: The loving heroic Knight invades the enemy’s territory to rescue His Bride by willingly laying down His life.

Act Four: The Knight is miraculously raised from the dead and returns home to prepare a place for His rescued bride.

Act Five: In the Father’s divine plan, now is the time that He has ordained that we may play out our parts in the drama. On one side of the stage stand the enemy; the flesh and a fallen world ready to wage war against our marriages. On the other side enters our Knight, His Father and His Messagener bearing gifts of forgiveness, grace, power and love to protect, restore and strengthen our marriages. In the center on middle stage we join the drama holding the gift of choice and free will, which the Father gave us in Act One.

It doesn’t matter where we have come from or what we have done in the past with this choice. This is a brand new scene still being written, and we still have the choice and the responsibility of the outcome as the curtain falls on the part we played in history. Since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses in the heavenilies who are watching this drama played out with anticipated breath, are we committed to do what we can to fight for and protect the witness of our marriages?

Will we fight the enemy, deny the flesh and overcome the world?

Our marriages are more than just about us! They are about future generations; they are about being conformed to His image; they are about being a witness to a fallen world; they are about upholding the Father’s divine plan and purpose for marriage and defeating the enemy at his frontline of attack.

As the curtain falls on the last line of the scene we played, will we be saying, “ I have finished the course, I have kept the faith”, as heaven applauds, while the Father declares, “Well done thy good and faithful servant.”

Dear Child,

Stressful and perilous times are coming on this earth. It will get worse and worse as you see the end coming. That is why My people must strengthen their root structure today, that they will not fall away as the heat of trials is turned up in these last days. Your root structure is your life source to Me, for I am the True Vine. It is essential if you are to survive the days that are coming on the earth. Develop and strengthen this root structure while it is still day!

Thus saith Papa