God is revealed to us in the scriptures. No one has ever seen Him face to face here on earth, so as to relate to us who He looks like. But we do know that by seeking Him through His word, we can get to know Him who created the heavens and the earth. As we get more acquainted with His word, we’ll get to know Him who is love.
The scriptures says:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it…
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
‭‭John‬ ‭1:1-5, 14‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Jesus also revealed to us that the word which became flesh, is like a seed that a sower sows in the ground. He said:

“The sower sows the word.”
‭‭Mark‬ ‭4:14‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

And later on the disciple of Jesus who had experienced God’s love revealed to us, that the Word which became flesh was indeed the Love of God. And by receiving to obey God’s word, we are actually living in His love. God’s word is God’s Love. He wrote:

“For the [true] love of God is this: that we habitually keep His commandments and remain focused on His precepts. And His commandments and His precepts are not difficult [to obey].”
‭‭1 JOHN‬ ‭5:3‬ ‭AMP‬‬

When we are able to accept the word of God on its face value, as being exactly what it is – that is God’s voice to us; then the power of His love will begin to get stronger in us, through our acts of obedience to do whatsoever He’s telling us to do. We will then begin to take more joy in obeying the word of the Lord.
The scriptures says again:

“We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him:”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭2:3-5‬ ‭NIV‬‬

We are able to declare God’s love, because His word about that love is real to us. No one can ever declare the word of God in power, without first experiencing His love. That’s why God’s word is important for anyone who wants to experience His love.
We can not separate the word of God from His Love. His word to us always reveals His love to us. If we really want to experience His love, we must learn how to fall in love with His word.
As Apostle John mentioned in the above scripture texts, no one can claim to know God if that person is not living in obedience to His word.
In other words for us to say: “I know him”; implies that we have had an intimate experience with Him (who is Love).
As an example we can’t claim to know anyone intimately, if we can’t even understand what the person is saying to us. If we are unable to distinguish God’s voice from the devil’s voice, then we can’t claim to know God intimately. God is known to us because we are intimately acquainted with the power of His word.
We are intimately acquainted with the ways He articulates those words, as He speaks directly to us. When God speaks, He speaks directly, firmly, tenderly and intimately into our hearts.
As a born again child of God the devil does not have access into your heart. Only God does, and His voice will always come tenderly with the expression of His love while He speaks to you.
When the devil speaks, he speaks to your head and through your brain, that is yet to be renewed by the word of God. That’s how we know God and in knowing Him, we are able to respond with love in obedience to His word.

SWEET WORD, SWEET LOVE

As mentioned last week, God’s word is sweet to anyone who has a “knowing” or intimate experience (ginosko) of His Love. The Prophet Ezekiel described his personal experience as he received the word of the Lord in this way:
“Then he said to me, “Son of man, eat this scroll I am giving you and fill your stomach with it.” So I ate it, and it tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth.”
‭‭Ezekiel‬ ‭3:3‬ ‭NIV‬‬
God’s word will always be a source of joy to anyone who had experienced the sweetness in it. If God’s word has never been sweet to your heart, you can’t say that you know Him; and you can’t say also that you have experienced His love towards you. God’s love is revealed to us through His word.
The way we experience the sweetness of His word, is by obeying it in practical applications. It has nothing to do with how we feel about Him or towards Him. Our acts of faith in obedience to His word is what moves God to respond to us. If we are not obeying God’s word by putting it into practice, then His love is not real to us.
When we practically apply God’s word into our real life situations, we’ll reap the harvest from it. In reaping the harvest we are able to enjoy, the sweetness of our act of faith in obedience to His word, more than when we initially received it into our hearts.
The word of God that is received, is the word of God that is believed. The word of God that we live by, is the Word that will become alive to us as we experience His love in our hearts. We receive and believe His word with our hearts.
We can’t really call ourselves Christians, if we are unable to put the words of Jesus into practice, through our acts of obedience to them.
In order words if you do love God, you will take His word more seriously, than the word of any other person on earth. His word then becomes the very source of life to you. You will then know that eternal life with Him, is worth everything to you; because you’ve heard and you have believed His word to you about it.
That’s why His word will always taste like honey, to the heart of a born again Christian. God’s word brings His love and His goodness into our lives. We are able to experience the sweetness of God’s presence, as we receive His Word and Love into our hearts.
The Prophet Ezekiel above compared his own personal experience, while meditating on the word of God, in comparison with honey in the mouth of the eater. When God’s word becomes like honey in our mouth, as we meditate on it, the spirit man inside of us begins to get stronger and empowered, in the sweetness of His love to our hearts. The more we love to read and meditate on God’s word, the more we will fall in love with Him.
This is what the experience of “knowing” God brings into our lives. It brings a sweetness that is so powerful in manifesting God’s presence, to change our lives and the lives of those around us, as we begin to act on what His word says to us.

LOOK TO SEE AND TASTE THE WORD – TO KNOW LOVE

God’s love has nothing to do with how we feel, but it has everything to do with the promise that He fulfilled, when He gave His Son to die on the cross for us. God gave His Son to show us that He really loves us:
Paul told the Romans:

“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭5:6-8‬ ‭NIV‬‬

God demonstrated His love for us, by sending Christ Jesus to die for the consequences of our sins, while we were still living in our sins. While we were still lost and confused in our sins, Christ died and rose from the dead, to open the way for us in knowing God’s love. The only way we can demonstrate our love back to Him, is by obeying His word to us.
Apostle John said:

“We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.”
‭‭1 John‬ ‭2:3-6‬ ‭NIV‬‬

By living in obedience to the word of God, we are acknowledging that we do love and know Him. Our faith needs to be active in order for us to be able to experience His love in this way. The word of God that we live by daily, is the word of God that we taste of by practicing it daily.
The Psalmist says in the Message translation of the Bible:
“Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see— how good GOD is. Blessed are you who run to him.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭34:8‬ ‭MSG‬‬
If we are not going to be acting by faith in opening our mouth to declare His Word to us, we cannot experience the goodness in His love to us. His goodness flows out of His loving kindness towards us. God is good to all men, because it’s in His nature of compassion and love to be good to all men.
The Psalmist says again:
“The Lord is good to everyone. He showers compassion on all his creation.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭145:9‬ ‭NLT‬‬
His compassion, mercies, grace and goodness all flows from His loving kindness towards us. We can’t separate all of these from the manifestation of His love towards us.
When all in the world has failed in loving you with the mess of your life; God will still remain faithful in loving you. His word is the guarantee that His love for you will never fade away. God is faithful and you can always count on Him, to always be there for you.
These are all the manners of His love towards us. He demonstrates His love towards us, with compassion, mercies, goodness, grace, faithfulness and loving kindness.
We need to open our spiritual eyes of understanding, to begin seeing Him working through His written word to us. This is how we can start tapping into His compassion, mercies, goodness, grace, faithfulness and loving kindness. If we can’t open up our hearts to see through His word by faith, we also should not expect to experience His love in any of these ways.
With the heart we can see into the realm of the spirit; but with the physical eyes we can see the natural world in which we live. It is only in the spirit that we can see and contact spiritual things. The natural eyes or mind can never see, in order to be able to understand spiritual things.
Love is a spiritual force, that can only be seen and experienced while we are in the spirit. It is not physical. Otherwise it will fade and fall away. That’s why people of the world are always falling out of love for one another. To them love is physical and personal (self centered). But that’s not real love. The love that never fails or fade away is spiritual. And we can only experience this love, when we experience God.
Our hearts needs to be receptive to see and receive (or taste) the love of God. God is Spirit and He is Love also. By training our spirit man to see and taste in receiving the love of God, we will get matured in spiritual things.
We must also acknowledge that the devil is also a spirit; but he cannot love. The ability is not in him to love. That’s why he goes about perverting God’s love, so that the lost souls in his world, will not be able to know God, who is Love.
The devil uses fear through intimidation as his weapon in planting the seed of hatred, so as to hinder people from trusting and having faith in the love of God. Hatred works through fear, just as love works only by faith.
But without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). The Spirit of faith always sees and speaks what is believed with the heart (2 Corinthians 4:13). We are able to believe the love of God, because of His kind of faith working in us, to help us in seeing and tasting as we experience His love.

NO SIN IN GOD’S LOVE

The problem with many Christians today, who are still struggling with sin; is not that they are not reading and meditating on the word of God. Their problem is actually in their inability to act, on what the word of God tells them to do. God’s word will always do what He promises us to do (Isaiah 55:10-11); if only we do what He tells us to do in it as a precondition for receiving His promises.
That means we need to fulfill the conditions, which comes with His promises to us through His word. We can’t separate the conditions, that goes with His promises from His actual promises to us. God’s word contains His promises for our lives; but for each of those promises of God, there is a condition that goes with them. We need to fulfill the precondition in each promises of God, for those promises to come to pass in our lives.
The word of God is the seed of God’s love in us. His love doesn’t make us to sin, or to fall into the temptation for sin. His love came to deliver us from the power of sin and death. That’s what Jesus did in manifesting the Father’s love for us. And because of this we can love also, without yielding to the temptations to fall into sin, which comes from the devil.
We grow in love as we grow in the revelation knowledge of His Word to us (John 15:10). As we do this, we will be declaring by our act of love for God, that we do place His word far above the words or opinions of all men on earth. Get yourself into the business of getting intimately acquainted to know God today, who is Love. Yes, He really does love you, and so do I:
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for 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 ‭4:7-8‬ ‭NIV

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