🎁 LOVE CAME DOWN……😍 🎁

Dear Reader,

💁🏻‍♀️ Do you feel overwhelmed by the amount of information and opinions that come your way everyday? In a world where content creation is king, and everyone has a “platform” via social media, it seems the information available every day is more than any normal person can process fully. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. What I am saying is I can see how this could turn into noise, introspection or even confusion. How do you choose what to read and listen to? And how do you apply it all to your life?

For a breath of what I hope is fresh air today, I feel it on my heart to take us back to—the most powerful moment when LOVE CAME DOWN, the selfless, life-changing Love of God. Immersion In It Will Drown Out Confusion, Relieve Any Pressure To “Figure It All Out,” And Empower You To Live More Fully Than You May Have Ever Dreamed Possible!

You may think that you’ve heard every message on God’s love before, but let me ask you a few questions:

1. Is there any area of your life that is under the influence of fear?
2. Do you often deal with insecurities?
3. Is practicing rest/self-care difficult for you?
4. Do you often let go of your boundaries for the sake of others?
5. Do you strive and feel like you’re in survival mode most of the time?

If you answered Yes to any of those questions then I want to propose to you that there is more to God’s love than you may have thought.

HAVE YOU REALLY HEARD IT 'ALL'?

When His Love Is The Foundation Of Everything We Do, The Automatic Effect Is Knowing Who You Are And Whose You Are. Don’t skip over this today. Stay With Me As We Take A Deep Dive Into THE LAVISH, EXTRAVAGANT, LIFE-ALTERING LOVE OF GOD!

So, Christmas is a beautiful time of year and has always been a special day for my family and myself even in the most challenging times. Not every Christmas has been filled with sweet sentiments and splendid situations, but rather many holiday seasons have accompanied heavy hearts and dire difficulties. However, no matter the circumstances that were in front of us, The Reality Of THE COMING OF CHRIST Never Has Lost Its Power And Significance In Our Lives Or Stolen Our Reason To Celebrate. The GOSPEL is Grander than the holiday season, More Real than any Christmas custom, and more Certain than our current cultural condition. 

Dear reader, "God Is To You What You See Him To Be." (we’ll talk about this below).

In the beginning, God loved man that He had made and He saw what He had made was VERY GOOD. True Love in it’s core not only GIVES but has the capacity to RECEIVE, it may not demand, but it opens up to Receive. 'You must reciprocate love, otherwise you quench love.' So, love gives and receives. In God’s love He gave man Everything. Man didn’t have to suffer to eat bread, God put everything there already before man came. His life was a life of rest. GOD created the man on the 6th day, which was the last of God’s creation, and on the 7th day God didn’t have to make nothing because everything was ready. Man’s first day was Seeing God At Rest. God’s 7th day is man’s first day, Man awakens to a day of rest - his life was to be a life of rest. If man had known the terrible consequences of his disobedience, he thought it was just a fruit, he could take a little bite and apologise to God. You know what God saw there, it was a lack of love that God saw, He looked beyond the breaking of the commandment because the word that was given to Adam if he had obeyed it, it was the proof of his love. GOD IS  LOVE. When you wound Love, you quench Love.

I’m reminded of a true story, a man married a woman and ill-treated her. Every day as he went to work, he’d write a list of things for her to do. Before I come back, make sure the kitchen is clean, the bed is dressed, the table set, the children washed and floor cleaned were his orders. He’d write everything out and, on his return, ask for the list and go through it with her to make sure everything was done, she was so terrified as she lived with her husband, she had to do it or else she’d be in trouble. Until one day the man died, and years after, she married another man who loved her. The house she used to live in with her late husband had become hers so the new man moved in. After a long while of living with this man who was so loving and kind, one day as she cleaned up the house, she felt something near a chair and as she tried to pull it out, it was a little piece of paper, on opening it, she realised it was one of the lists the late husband had written for her. As she read through the list, tears began to roll down her eyes. She remembered her late husband, and the fear in which she lived all those years, and thought for a moment everything she did in that list and had been doing for this man too although this husband never asked for it. She looked at her life, she did it by force for her late husband and for this man she did it for love. Here was this lady who’d do anything when she was loved. But the former husband pulled something else out of her, love was quenched, he never did get her love, he married a wife but never had her love, but this new man got her love.

• Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” If you’d like to do a study on Christ dying for us and as us, then read the book of Romans, especially Chapter 1-10. Christ died for us, which means He loved us before we deserved it. He demonstrated what the love of God was when He died for people who couldn’t do anything for Him. He didn’t die to fix you, He just died because He loves you. This should tell you how much value you have. The sacrifice Jesus made on the cross determines the value of the people He purchased. He purchased you while you were still a sinner. 

He loved you while you were a sinner to demonstrate that God doesn’t love you so that you’ll do something, or be something different than what you are right now. So, when Christ died for us, it showed us that He had no strings attached. 

• Ephesians 3:19 says, “and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” In other words, that you would know with your heart what you couldn’t know with your head. 

Similarly with Christians, let’s look at Psalm 18 to see how God responds to people in vs 25. The psalmist David, found something about God, he says with the merciful thou will show thyself merciful, meaning merciful people find God to be a merciful God. God Is To You What You See Him To Be. King Saul didn’t get mercy for he would have killed his son for breaking his word, it took the people to deliver his son from his hands. There’s no wonder he didn’t find mercy from God. Every time you listen to some people’s testimonies of great things in their lives, there are those who wonder where’s this God they are talking about. Someone else says God spoke to me last night, yesterday, this morning - these are folks who hear God’s voice easily. Then there are others who wonder where this God is? vs 25. To the upright He shows Himself upright- meaning to those who stand on your word you’d show yourself as one who keeps your Word. God Is To You What You See Him To Be. Vs 26 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.

There are some Christians who were honoured by God and He took them to places and positions of influence and God blessed them and says now is the time speak for me, you are my voice, but suddenly they turn to the people of the world, no more going to the church, it becomes a thing of tradition, too busy for Prayer & Word. The word says they limited the Holy One therefore He was turned to become their enemy. The Bible says, The children of Israel, vexed His spirit, the way they acted God was angry with them. He became their enemy.

Don’t let Him become your enemy, when He becomes your enemy you don’t know it, things just go bad. Look at Samson, when God was with him, He came upon him- Mightily, but when God left him he didn’t know (he knew not the Spirit of God  had gone from him, Judges 16:20) When He leaves He doesn’t announce it dear one, but when He comes there’s a noise. On the day of Pentecost(Acts 2) there was a sound from heaven, everybody will take notice of you that God is with you. Things will begin to happen around you.

I remember when I was doing a project in my school and I hadn’t completed it, the rule by our professors were that when our names were being called, we were to enter one at a time. So, I was relieved because I knew I hadn’t completed my project and didn’t want everyone to witness my professors shouting at me. But when it was my turn, they called everybody who cared to come and the room couldn’t take everyone, some were at the window, the devil wanted to shame me, but God was ready for a show down. Tears began to roll down my eyes, as my supervisors called everyone, they changed the rules. I went there and I prayed saying, Dear Lord Jesus, I need you to help me now. I placed my project on the table and one of the supervisors came and asked, ‘Is this what we asked for you to do?’ I kept praying. And they asked me to take them through my work and I started explaining my design one after the other and at the end waited for the external examiner to speak. He looked at the design, the model I had made which wasn’t complete, he looked at it again and said, ‘SUPERB’. I’ll never forget it.  Instantly tears came out of my eyes, I couldn’t t believe it. The job was incomplete. The professor said I didn’t know you had such brilliant students, and they asked who are you referring to? When he pointed to me, the professors didn’t expect it, because one thing people knew about me in school, was that I stood all the way for Jesus. And that wasn’t it, my design was used by the examiner to give an example to others, I couldn’t believe this. I saw the Love of God in it. That’s What God Can Do For You, When He Favours You He’ll Make Sure There’s An Audience To See His Glory!

God’s blessing will shock you, you’ll weep because you won’t be able to believe someone will do for you but GOD WILL DO IT. Listen, what a man takes years to do, God in a moment of time, will do it for you. Why do many live another way? Because they believe in their ability. When you work so hard to do things, one day God will do such thing that took you years for someone else. When you refuse to do what God tells you to do, He doesn’t get mad at you, He’ll give someone else the same ability. He’ll never take yours from you, for the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. He’ll go to someone else and give them everything He gave you because He has them in abundance and will give them more and give that one the advantage too, and leave you with your own, but yours won’t increase or refresh but will remain there until it's old and ready to be done away. 

The humble entrance of the Saviour of the world altered the course of history with an Eternal Seal of Redemption and Reconciliation. It’s not just a nice story, that we tell with cookies in our bellies and hot cocoa in our hands. But, rather the crescendo of His coming is the antecedent to the Impossible made Possible. In the arrival of our Saviour, the sick are healed, and the lonely are found in family, the dead experience resurrection life. He came for so much more than Christmas trees and presents wrapped in red bows. Now, let me be clear, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with the holiday cheer and Christmas tradition, it is a beautiful part of the celebration that accompanies this time of year and YES I am all for a Christmas celebration as long as JESUS is the CENTER of it. 

ACTIVATION FOR THE WEEK:

This week I have it on my heart to encourage you to lean into the love of God, and His unconditional love for you. What better way to Celebrate this Christmas season than on the foundation of just how valuable you are - because of what JESUS did. So take a moment. Yes, right now. Take a moment and simply be with God. Ask Him to show you His love in this moment. When He gives you something, hold onto it for the week. May every insecurity, doubt, fear, worry, lack be washed away by the furious love that is the Love of God!

Take a moment to think on: How does God show His love for you? How are you standing on your value as a child of God this week, this season? Tell me about it by hitting reply HERE or in the comments on Fb HERE!

I bless you with this revelation in your heart today—so much so that it doesn’t even need to make sense in your head! I pray you celebrate the significance of the season and hope that GOD’S LOVE will be THE Motivator for everything life. 

MERRY CHRISTMAS DEAR ONE! 

Cheering you on, 

- JJ✨