intimacy w God 1

The Bible tells us that the greatest of all commandments is this; “you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.”
But to love God wholeheartedly is a real challenge. That kind of love doesn’t come very easily. How, then , are you to obey God’s greatest commandment? How can you ever hope to accomplish that? The answer is simultaneously challenging and simple; Rely on God, who is love. He is the source of all love, even the love with which you love Him back, so to love Him you have abide in Him and receive His love for you.
According to God’s Word, the Christian life is not what you do for Christ but what He does in and through you. So if Jesus who is the distilled essence of love, lives in and through you as you are surrendered to His will and empowered by His Spirit, you are able to love others, including Him, with that same divine love-and loving becomes His responsibility.
The only way you can be separated from God is by your own choice. If you feel that you’ve lost the love you once had for God, or if you’ve never found it, it’s not because He doesn’t care for you; it’s only because you’ve turned away from Him.
Quite often people ask how they can pray for me. I always answer the same…that in whatever I do, wherever I go, I will never leave my first love. Ever since I was a young Christian, astounded by the powere of God’s presence and overwhelmed with His love, I have made it my first priority to hold on for dear life to my intimate, personal, relationship with Him. I longed to possess a heart overflowing with love and praise for my Lord. If I failed to maintain my first love, my disobedience would undermine all I hold dear. I know that in time I would distintegrate as a believer, a husband, a father, a person and a businessman. My first love for God, is everything to me.
For me the price of maintaining that devotion has been daily submission. All day long I seek to walk and talk with my Savior no matter what the business of the day might be. If I can cling to His love from one moment to the next, I know I will never leave it. I pray continually as I practice the presence of God. God has given me so much, but the greatest gift of all is a heart that can be tuned to sing his praise. God has left me with the one thing that I treasure most; the ability to love Him with my first love and to praise Him with my mind and emotions every moment that I live on this earth. By the grace of God I will never take leave of my first love for Him.
Do not think that I am perfect. Daily my flesh wars against my spirit. My heart is prone to wander just as your is. It requires daily vigilance to protect my spirit from leaving my first love. But it is more than worth the struggle and daily discipline. God’s love is so strengthening and so refreshing. I can face any medical problem that may lie before me. I can face the prospect of death itself with joy. But I could never face the possibility of separation from the perfect love of God that sustains my spirit.
How’s your Spirit today? Have you wandered? Have you left your first love? How would you describe the state of your affection for Him today? Can you remember how it felt on the day you first met Him? How far have you wandered from the place where He wants you to be? What will it take for you to return to that first love that He wants you to experience as a way of life?
Bill Bright….
ALL FOR YOU