The God Who Chose Love Over Life

He died to prove that He loves you beyond His life. And that even death would not come between Him and you.

God had a choice. He could have decided to give us up to destruction. He could have chosen to preserve His Life. But He chose not to. He took the path that would cost Him everything.

God chose LOVE over LIFE.

And was crushed beyond recognition, that you might be made whole and beautiful.

He had put upon Himself your weaknesses, wounds and sores and, carried away your diseases, that you might be well.

Jesus wore a crown of thorns, pierced His head with briars, that you might be made whole in your emotions and mind.

Though He was infinitely rich, He impoverished Himself, that you might become rich beyond measure.

He laid down His life for you, that you might be forgiven. And was raised from the dead, to justify, prove that you were “Not guilty.”

Now, “Who could separate us from the endless love of God’s Anointed One?
Absolutely no one!
For nothing in the universe has the the power to diminish His love for us. Troubles, pressures, and problems are unable to come between us and heaven’s love. What about persecutions, deprivations, dangers, and death threats?
No, for they are all impotent to hinder omnipotent love.”

We triumph over all these things.
For the One Who loves us enough to go to hell for us has made us partners of His endless triumph.
We are more than conquerors. We are larger than life. His reckless and passionate love is our sure victory over everything!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

THE NAMES OF GOD.

The God Who is present.

You may be wondering, why study the Names of God?
Jesus let us in on the relevance of knowing the Names of God.
In John 17:26, He said, in a conversation with the Father:
“And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, THAT THE LOVE WITH WHICH YOU LOVED ME MAY BE IN THEM, AND I IN THEM.”

So we are learning about the names of God, that our hearts may be established in His love, the very love with which He loved Jesus Christ, the Son of His love!

What does a name tell us? What’s in a name that gives it such power?
Do names have any more significance besides identification?

Names are revealing. Names, especially in the Eastern cultures carried far more significance than they do in the Western world.

In the ancient civilization, names were thought to reveal the essential nature and character of a person – the way he/she reasons and does things.

With this background insight, it becomes easier to understand the Names of God and how they give us a revelation of Who He is and what He does. Studying the Names of God would reveal His love nature. And you could never know of His love without falling head-over-heels in love with Him. ?

We shall start with the name JEHOVAH SHAMMAH, which means the-Lord-is-present.

“The distance all around will be 18,000 cubits. “And the name of the city from that time on will be: the Lord is there.”
~ Ezekiel 48:35

This Name speaks of the relational nature of God. We see Him in the Garden of Eden, having intimacies with man and His wife. He cherished His communion with them. Then sin comes in and destroys that beautiful relationship.
But that’s not all. Next, we see God sacrificing His very own Son, to reconcile man back to Himself and restore that precious relationship He once had with humanity.

God is a Father Who loves to have a vital relationship with His children. He wants to be present in your life. He longs to be involved with every detail of your life. He doesn’t want to be distant. No!
He is not an absentee Father. No!
He yearns to live, not just with you, but in you, in your heart… To dance with you, sing over you, cry with you, and rejoice with you… To comfort, guide, strengthen and watch over you.

He’s engraved you on the palm of His hands. Your face is ever before Him. He would never leave nor forsake you.

“…for He [God] Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you)! [Assuredly not!]”
~Hebrews 13:5, AMP

This truth should be a shield, to protect your heart from the feeling of loneliness and helplessness.
For you’re NEVER ALONE!

He is the God Who is present!

God made the birds to fly and the fishes to swim. God made you for love and intimacy. To live life unloved is like clipping the wings of a bird or the fins of a fish. It’s to be unfulfilled.

After God made man, the Bible tells us something deep about the man God created. “And God said, it is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”
(Genesis 2:18)

Did you see that?
You were made for connection, relationship, intimacy, communion. Outside of this, you malfunction.

Man’s first relationship was with his Manufacturers, God. He first spoke and shared with Him. God’s original intention wasn’t to create servants or slaves to serve Him. No! If that’s all about it, then man would not be needed, because God already had myriads of angels. However, God wanted a family of sons (males and females). He wanted sons He could share His life with.

You know, God is love. And it’s the nature of love to share. So God wanted to share His life and nature with man. He wanted to give you His peace, especially when you’re going through some storms. He wanted to share His joy with you, especially when you’re grieving or sad. He wanted you to share in His righteousness.

Not only did God want to share His life with you, but He also wants to share in your own life with you. He wanted to be in touch with your realities. God wants to share in my life? Yes, your life! He wants to be a part of your struggles. He wants to be with you in your grief. He wants to help you out of those things you’re even ashamed to talk about. God wants to take your brokenness and piece it together into something beautiful and attractive.

Yes, that temptation that always makes your trip, God wants to help you find the strength to overcome it. You need to know that He isn’t irritated with you. God isn’t depressed by your failures. God isn’t even expecting you to walk perfectly. Because He knows that you can’t, without Him. All He wants is for you to trust Him enough to let Him help you.

Will you let Him help you today?
Life wasn’t meant to be lived alone. You were not made to go it alone. You were made for intimacy with the Father. That’s where your life, joy, peace, strength flows out from.

Kindly ask God to come and walk this path of life together with you today.

When Daddy God declares over you, “This is my Son, chosen and marked by my love, delight of my life,”
He is saying, “I CHERISH you, My Child.”

To cherish is to treat with tenderness and affection; to nurture with care; to protect and aid. God regards you with such tender affection. He cares about you deeply. His everlasting arms are always stretched over you, to keep you safe from harm. He is so deeply moved at the thought of you. For you’re the Son of His love, the offspring of the sacred sacrifice of God’s only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

When God sees you, He remembers all that went into the redemption of your soul. The excruciating pain that His Son endured. The shame. The mockery. The sweat-turned blood. The indescribable agony in Gethsemane.

Father God holds you very dear to His heart. You’re His most precious treasure, the trophy of His Son’s obedience, and triumph over Satan, sin and death.

You may be thinking, “how could God love someone like me, who isn’t doing everything right?”
His incredible love is greater than your failures. God loves you in spite of your slips and falls. He loves you because of Christ’s sacrifice for your soul. And if you will rest in His boundless love for you, sin will loosen its grip on your soul.
The truth of His love will make you free. When you know Him, that He is love and He loves you with all that He is, you will invariably love Him in return.

Daddy God yearns for you with such deep cravings. He yearns to hear your voice. He longs for your fellowship. He desires for you to, not lose sight of Him, while you go through the activities of the day. He loves to hear your heart think about Him, and your voice offer up worship. He adores every moment with you. All because of what Christ has done for you.
You’re forever CHERISHED!

The Lord shouts over you:

“The Lord your God is in the midst of you, a Mighty One, a Savior [Who saves]! He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest [in silent satisfaction] and in His love He will be silent and make no mention [of past sins, or even recall them]; He will exult over you with singing.”

You’re CHERISHED!

Love is the deepest spiritual longing of the human heart. In other words, the ultimate need of the human heart is to feel a sense of security.
Because the more deeply we are loved, the more secure we tend to feel. And the more secure one feels, the easier it is for one to reach beyond oneself, to love others, without manipulation.

The deep importance of the need for love lies in the fact that we were created in love and by love, and to live in love. God crafted the human from the core of His Being, from the very foundation of love. For God is love. He is the complete expression of love, the very fullness of love. And out of this fullness, you and I were created. That’s why the deep longing for love and affection exert such a powerful pull on us, that we will go to any length just to fulfill it. For instance, we can even feign sickness just to get attention. When I was a child, I used to do this, especially at those times I felt I wasn’t given enough attention, being the last born. And it always worked. My mum would let me sleep in her bed, cover me up and treat me to some special delicacies. ?
That’s how powerful a pull the longing for love exerts on us!

The great king David also came in touch with this powerful reality. He expressed it in such strong words. He said God’s unfailing love is better than life. (Psalm 63:3). That is, life itself isn’t a match for the knowledge that we are loved by God’s unfailing love. What’s life without love!

In Song of Solomon, this deep longing to feel loved and wanted and adored is again expressed in such beautiful poetic words:

“Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.”

(Song of Solomon 8:6, NIV)

Paul the apostle also identified love as the greatest human need, when he said,
“But earnestly desire and zealously cultivate the greatest and best gifts and graces (the higher gifts and the choicest graces). And yet I will show you a still more excellent way [one that is better by far and the highest of them all—love].”
(1Corinthians 12:31, AMP)

In 1Corinthians 13:13, he said that love is the greatest of eternal realities, the greatest of human needs.

Hence, he advised the Corinthian church to make love – the receiving and giving of it – their great quest. They were to pursue love as though their lives depended on it – because they did. (1Corinthians14:1)

God’s original intent was that man, carved out from His perfect love, would live forever in His loving Presence and experience overwhelming security. Man’s heart was designed to live in love, and to operate in security.
Since God created us and shaped our hearts for love, we are born with a great need to feel loved and accepted, to feel cherished and valued. And to the degree this need goes unsatisfied, we will experience insecurities in our lives. It is a scientific fact that babies who are not given loving touch in the first few months of their lives can become physically and emotionally damaged. Those children grow up with a love-deficit in their heart, and are prone to all kinds of personality defects, such as addictive disorders, rejection syndrome and the likes. I need to say here that, while human love is needed to help the soul flourish and function well, it’s not enough to satisfy the deep-heart longing for love and affection. Only God’s love can completely fulfill that strong desire. To help you, I would like to recommend my book, I LOVE YOU. You can purchase it on the website’s Shop.

Maybe you didn’t experience what it means to be loved and accepted when you were growing up. It’s true there wasn’t much you could do to help yourself. However, you are grown now; there’s something you can do. You can forgive those who deprived you of love. And you can open your heart to the flood of God’s boundless, infinitely intimate and unconditional love for you.

God loved you before you were born. He loved you from eternity. And He isn’t about to stop loving you now. He loves you, not because of anything you have done or haven’t done. He loves you because it’s His nature to love, and He chose to love you. And there is nothing you can do to make Him love you any less or any more than He already loves you. For He loves you with everything He’s got. He gave up His Son for you. There ain’t greater love!

Believing God’s perfect love for you, accepting what Christ has done for you on the cross, is the beginning of your journey to wholeness. God’s perfect love in your heart has the ability to heal every emotional wounds, satisfy your heart’s deepest longing for affection and stump out all insecurities. Who knows this truth more than the apostle whom Jesus loved!
He said,
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”
(1John4:18, ESV)

You know that you have received God’s love in your heart when your fears and insecurities are giving way. And you’re giving love, not to get it back, but because you know that you have been lavishly loved by God Himself. You love from a secure position. And you accept and value others because you know that God has accepted you unconditionally and valued highly.

It’s my prayer that God’s love and acceptance will become more real to you than ever before. And may it heal the loneliness, the deprivation, and abandonment. In Jesus Name.