Guard Your Heart - - Guard Your First Love

 

Matthew 24:12

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.

*Strong's Ex. Conc. No. 458

Iniquity: lawlessness, disobedience, sin

From the Greek word ' anomia' (pronounced an-om-ee'-ah). 'The utter disregard for God's law (His written and living Word).  Includes the end-impact of law breaking – i.e. its negative influence on a person's soul (status before God).'

    Iniquity is both contempt for and violation of God's law. And according God's Christ "it will abound". Abound: multiply, increase upon increase. And many who think they are Christians - Christ's followers - will leave the faith they think are and be revealed as the faithless that they really are: the unfaithful.

Revelation 2:4

But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first.

FIRST LOVE

    Remember how you felt when you fell in love with your sweetheart? Our eyes would tend to glaze over, getting that starry-eyed effect, when we thought of them or spoke of them. 

    We wanted to be with them all the time, do what they wanted to do, go where they wanted to go. We listened to the same songs, watched the same movies, read the same books, attended the same church. Their world was our world. 

    But after awhile, if the stars in our eyes became tears, then was it ever true love after all? The things we used to do together were no longer appealing to us as a couple. Our hearts fell out of love. It was not an enduring love. Our first love had faded. 

ENDURING LOVE

    A love that endures will make it through the bad times as well as the good times. In this life we will know pain as well as pleasure, sorrow as well as joy, death as well as life. 

    Enduring love will make it all the way to the end. From the first "I love you" to the last breath taken. From "I do" to "Good-bye". Enduring love perseveres, overcoming obstacles and gaining ground in its endeavor to remain faithful to each other and to cross the finish line of life. 

    If the first love we have for one another remains strong then it becomes an enduring love, a faithful love. As it is in our personal relationships, so it is in our spiritual relationship. And how do we maintain a Faithful, Enduring first love relationship in Christ? When we love Him like He loves us: through and through. 

AGAPE LOVE

    Jesus tells us to "A new commandment I give to you, that you should love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another." (John 13:34). How has Christ loved us? With a beneficial love. 

    An all-encompassing love which overlooks faults in each other, forgiving each other every time there is an offense against us. A to-the-death love, an I-would-die-for-you love which Jesus proved He had when He died on the cross. But this love will wax cold, will wane in a person's heart until the flicker of love that was there goes out.

    This love wrongs no one (Romans 13:10). This love holds no grudges against anyone, nor does it seek revenge on wrongs (Leviticus 19:18). This love seeks the betterment of its enemies and prays for its persecutors (Matthew 5:44). This love honors others before itself (Romans 12:10). 

    To sum it up, this love carries no hate towards others, even if by rights one person could hate another for a legitimate reason, such reasons do not exist in Christ's love. Even on the cross, when He could have condemned the people who nailed Him there, He forgave them. (Luke 23:34).

LOVE-LETTER

    The whole Bible, the written Word of God, is a Love-letter from God to His people, for only His people will be able to understand what is written on its pages. We know this because when an unsaved person reads the Bible, they  see only the words on the pages, the surface or letter of the law written therein. And there is no understanding in their hearts, no knowledge, no love of God. 

    Wisdom writes the Word on the hearts of those who believe the Word to be God's Word. It is, after all, Faithful and True (Revelation 21:5, 19:11). The Spirit of God by the power of God is written with love on the hearts of they (we) who love God (2 Corinthians 3:3). 

    Faithfulness to God's Word requires diligence on our part. Reading this Book together strengthens our bond, for we read to learn of God's love and how to put it into practical application in us. Faithfulness to God's Word demands holiness on our part: righteous living from the inside-out, not just lip service which is only seen and heard, but heart-service which is known by God in secret and revealed by God when His timing is apparent. 

BORN AGAIN LOVE

    We are the beloved, the born of God, the born again: "We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. That is how we know the Spirit of Truth and the spirit of deception. Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." 1 John 4:6-8. 

GUARD YOUR FIRST LOVE MEDLEY

    

 

Guard Your Heart - - Guard Your Marriage

 

Malachi 2:15

Has not the LORD made them one, having a portion of the Spirit? And why one? Because He seeks godly offspring. So guard yourselves in your spirit and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. 

*Strong's Ex. Conc. No. 898

Break Faith: to deal treacherously with, betray, deceive

From the Hebrew word 'bagad' (pronounced baw-gad'): to be unfaithful, to depart.

    Before the flood the sons of God, the men who followed God, turned from God's ways and God's Word to go after the daughters of men, men who worshiped gods they had created. They polluted themselves and their worship was unacceptable to God. They brought destruction on themselves and their families by bringing idolatry into their tents, their homes. 

    They were unfaithful to both God and to their wives. For it is God who ordains the marriage covenant having set it up from the beginning. God created Adam. Then from Adam God created Eve. This joined them together: bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh. Created from a rib near Adam's heart was Eve. Her he would love forever. He loved her so much he disobeyed God when he, too, ate from the forbidden tree. He was unfaithful to God and by disobeying God, Adam was unfaithful to Eve, as well. Who knows how God would have reacted had it been only Eve who disobeyed. 

    We, as God's peculiar people, set apart for Himself, set apart in His love by His love, are to be faithful to God, to His Word in His Spirit. We, the born again believers, the church, the saved Gentiles and the saved Jews, are created in Christ to be the bride of the bridegroom. And in this union we are to create godly offspring: by our witness and our testimony other people will hear the Word we speak, see the works which we do, and glorify God by coming into this union as well. What a miracle of Life that is! Life Eternal. 

    Unfaithfulness begins in the eye. Genesis 6:2 "That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." Men of God, men who were serving the Lord, took their eyes off of the God who chose them to be His people and turned their eyes to women who served created gods, gods created by their fathers; they married them and had children with them. They broke faith with the God of their people and whored themselves out to the gods of other people. 

    As God's people, faithfulness is required of us. In our hearts, in our homes/families, in our churches/sanctuaries we are to honor God. We are meant to be different from the world, separated from the way in which the world works (1 Peter 2:9). We are created to worship God and Him only (Exodus 20:1-6). We worship with our hearts, with our spirit, with our bodies (Romans 12:1, 2). 

    Our eyes are to be focused on His Word. Our ears are to be open to His voice. Our hands are to do His work. Our feet are to walk in His way. Our hearts are to be filled with His love, to operate in the Love of God: forgiving even when forgiveness is not asked for or seems to be beyond the scope of forgiveness: for we who know we have been forgiven much by our God must genuinely forgive those who have sinned against us. 

    We worship God with everything we have within us for HE IS OUR GOD and there is no room for any other in our hearts. The LORD joys over His people with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). The LORD delights in the people who fear (revere) Him. We take refuge in The LORD GOD (Psalm 91:1, 2). 

    Psalm 128 tells us that a man who fears the Lord will be blessed in honoring and loving his wife. Their children will be many and the LORD will bless them from Zion, from the hill of His sanctuary, from the mountain of blessings God will bless the man who fears Him and remains faithful in his heart and his life to his God and his wife. 

    Let our eyes not wander, nor our hearts, that we may be found of the LORD in His Word, walking in the Way of Holiness and living a righteous life in His Spirit. 

LET THIS HEART NOT WANDER by Young Oceans

MADE FOR JESUS by John Mark Pantana

I AM YOUR BELOVED by Jonathan David Helser, Melissa Helser

MY REFUGE by Rivers & Robots

IN YOUR MIDST by Allie Paige

ABIDE IN ME by Andrew Marcus