Very often we have heard of how much God loves us, in our Sunday mass

or in retreats, everywhere we go we hear preachers telling us of how much

God loves each one of us. Today I want to ask you HOW MUCH DO
YOU LOVE GOD?

The very reason why God created us was to love Him. He created us so
that He could love us and we could love Him, thus building up a
wonderful love relationship. Is this not what Christianity is all about?
Yes! This is Christianity, which is why we are likened to the bride and
God the bridegroom, the two coming together, then the marriage fest and
finally the banquet. This is what God ordained for each one of us.

Deut 6:5 you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all
your soul and with all your strength. This is the first and the greatest
commandment. In the Gospel of Mathew (Mt.22: 36-38) when Jesus was
asked by the Pharisees which commandment in the law was the greatest
then Jesus answered and said to them, You shall love the Lord, Your God,
with all your heart, with all your soul and all with all your mind. In other
words what Jesus is saying is you need to Love the Lord with your whole
being.

Today my friends are we really making a conscious effort to fall in love

with God, or are we taking Gods love and our walk with God for granted?
Are we taking the great sacrifice for granted? Are we taking our salvation
for granted? God proved His love for us by sending Jesus to die for us
while we were yet sinners (Rom 5:8). He did not ask us to change first
then die for us but gave us His life unconditionally for you and for me.
Can we take this for granted? How have we reciprocated this great love?
What is God asking of us? See Deut10: 12 “And now Israel (put your
name here) what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord,
and follow his ways exactly, to Love and serve the Lord, your God, with
all your heart and with all your soul”. Is this too much to ask?

Friends we cannot build a relationship without love. When a couple come

together they first fall in love with each other then as this love grows they
begin to grow closer to each other thus building a relationship, when this
relationship is built they decide to get married, in other words they decide
to give themselves to each other totally and completely. This is what God
is expecting from you and me, this is Christianity my friends. Satan does
not mind us being lukewarm Christians. He does not mind us praying once
in a while, he does not mind us going to church, he does not mind us
getting busy in ministry, but what he really cant stand is we falling in love
with God and building up a relationship.

I am sure my friends that many of us Love the Lord, our God, but today
we need to check and see how much do we love this God of ours, is it with
all our hearts, our minds, our strength, or is our love for Him limited and
conditional? Do we love Him so much as to put Him first in our lives or
do other people or things come before God. Mathew 10:37 say “Any one
who loves mother, father, son or daughter more than me is not worthy of
me”. What is Jesus trying to say? He is not telling you to hate your
father, mother, son or daughter No! No! not at all, what Jesus is trying to
say is you need to love me so much as to put me first in your life, all other
friendships or relationships must come after the Lord, our God. Very often
as we go around preaching we see people put other people, things or even
their jobs before the Lord. Very often when we ask people to spend time
in personnel prayer or Bible study the most common excuse is “we do not
have time”, but amazingly the same people have time for everything else
like eating, drinking, watching TV, going out for dinners or party’s, spend
long hours sleeping, spend much time in the toilet and in bathing, but they
don’t have time only for prayer (God), then what kind of love is this?
Here I would like to once again refer to a couple in love, with what
eagerness they wait to meet each other, if they are supposed to meet at a
particular time they would be there earlier, no friends, no work, no
engagements will come in the way, further the time they spend together if
never sufficient. Do we love the Lord our God like this or has meeting
with the Lord become a boring affair, are we making excuses, if yes then
we need to check and see what is happening to our relationship with God.

Today many people tell us that they do not experience the love of God.
How can we experience the love of God when we ourselves are not
making an effort to fall in love with Him? It is not that God does not love
us or loves us less No God’s love is always constant and nothing in this
whole wide world can change His love for us, but when we do not make
an effort to reciprocate this love we begin to feel like God does not love
us, or God has forsaken us, especially when we ask for something and do
not get it, or when some one in the family falls seriously ill, or when a
loved one passes on, or when we are having a difficult time, but Jesus says
in John 10:10 “I came so that they may have life and have it more
abundantly”. Yes my friends God wants to give us life in all its fullness,
He wants to give us life in all its abundance, but we are not able to accept
these promises of God because we are not in love with Him or in a
relationship with Him.

We sometimes get so upbeat, worked up, depressed and sometimes

frustrated with our problems, our sickness, financial difficulties etc. etc.,
but what we fail to realize is that in all this there is something good, there
is something profitable as Paul writes in his letter to the Romans 8:28 “We
know that all things work for good for those who love God and are called
according to His purpose”. Please note that this promise is especially
made for those who love Him. In other words if we are making an effort
to love the Lord, Our God then in every difficult situation we will be able
to see the hand of God and His faithfulness thus making these situations
not a burden but a blessing in our lives. My friends God wants to give us
the best never the second best because He wants to see His children happy,
which father would not want to see his children happy? God our father
too wants to shower us with abundant blessings and gifts if only we are
able to receive it. See what Paul writes about this in his first letter to the
Corinthians 2:9 “what eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and what
has not entered the human heart is what God has prepared for those who
love Him”. What does this mean? What Paul is saying is that God has
such wonderful things in store for you that you could not have even
imagined such things not even dreamt of such things but he also says that
these wonderful things are for those who love Him.

In many places where we have preached retreats we see that many are
weighed down by the effect of curses in their life. Yes this can be dealt
with by healing the family tree (I can not go into details on this topic here
but do read the teaching on curses and blessings which will appear in this
section later). What I want to say here is that we need not suffer from the
effect of curses nor do our children have to suffer all we need to do is to
fall in love with the Lord, our God and all effect of the curse will be
broken. See Exodus 20:6 and Deuteronomy 5:10 God is promising to
bestow mercy down to the thousandth generation on the children of those
who love Him and keep His commandments. Yes my friends if you today
fall in love with the Lord your God then you can be sure that thousand
generations after you will be blessed because you made an effort to fall in
love with God.

Another difficulty in Christianity is keeping the commandments in John

14:15 Jesus says “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”, but
for some it seems so difficult for others it seems impossible, but if you say
that you love God then this should not be a problem because this is what
love is all about, is it not? Children who love their parents keep the rules
of the house or rather the rules laid down by the parents even though they
may not really agree with those rules. A wife does not do what her
husband would not like her doing not because she is afraid of him but
because she loves him, similarly the husband would not do anything the
wife would not like him doing not because he is scared of his wife but
because he loves his wife. Therefore keeping to rules does not become
difficult if you are in love. I know of people who have stopped smoking
and drinking just because the girl they were in love with did not like it, I
also know of many women who put in a lot of effort to learn cooking after
they fell in love, but these same women did not even bother to learn
cooking earlier, some of them even hated cooking, so you see when you
are in love nothing is too difficult. A beautiful passage comes to my mind
at this time it is
1John5: 3 that says, “ for the love of God is this that we keep His
commandments, and His commandments are not burdensome”. Let me
now give you some good news and that is if you keep the first and the
greatest commandment you really don’t have to worry about the other
nine, you know why? Because when you love some one you really would
not want to hurt them or do any thing that they would not like. So fall in
love with the Lore, our God and all other things will fall into place.

I am not saying that when we fall in love with God temptations will
disappear no but what I am saying is that we will be able to resist the
temptation, thus avoiding sin in our lives to a great extent, see what James
has to say in his letter 1:12 “Blessed is the man who perseveres in
temptation for when he has been proved he will receive the crown of life
that He promised to those who love Him”. I would like to draw our
attention here to the ‘crown of life’ if you notice this crown of life that we
are waiting to receive is promised to those who love God. So we can see
that there is much advantage in falling in Love with the Lord our God.
Dear friends we can be sure that Heaven will be our home if we fall in
love with God.
Jesus said in John 14:21b “and whoever loves me will be loved by my
Father and I will love him and reveal myself to him”, is this not a blessing
Jesus is promising to reveal himself to us if we fall in love with Him.
Friends if today you are in need of anything, if you really need God’s
provision in your life I would sincerely advise you to fall in love with
God.

If this teaching has been a blessing to you please do let us know and tell
others too to fall in love with God. May God bless you?

Christopher Correya.
Power Ministries (India).