Open Heaven 3 February 2023
MEMORISE: For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous. 1 John 5:3
BIBLE READING: LUKE 16:13 (KJV)
13 No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Read yesterday’s Open Heaven Devotional here
Today, I want to share with you a secret that took many great men and women a long time and a lot of pain to learn: it is that you must be very careful who you bring close to you. Most of the people who parade themselves as friends are not genuine. For some of them, they had ulterior motives from the beginning of your friendship while for many others, the moment things get a little tough, they betray your friendship. Only a few, and I mean a tiny little number of people can be called real friends.
The information you let out to someone can never be retrieved, so you have to be careful what you tell your ‘friends’. When I joined The Redeemed Christian Church of God, I became very close to two brothers. One day, God revealed to me that one of them is not a real friend, but a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I confronted him about it and he strongly denied being a fake friend to me. A few years later, when I became General Overseer, I was going to discuss my new role with him when he opened up and told me that he had hated me from the day I came into the Church. Many of us have had similar betrayals; unfortunately, not everyone learns from their experiences.
Your real friends are those who are happy when you are happy and sad when you are sad. When the soldiers came to arrest the Lord Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane (John 18:1-10), Peter drew a sword and tried to defend Jesus. How can one man stand against several armed soldiers? He faced them as if it were he they had come to take. That is a friend. Judas on the other hand in John 12:3-6 showed that he only cared about himself and not Jesus.
In our Bible reading for today, Jesus Christ made it clear that you either love God or mammon; it is not possible to love the two at the same time. Loving God one hundred percent takes care of the second commandment which says, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ because in John 4:20, the Bible says, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”
If you love Jesus, God will love you specially in return and He will dwell with you (John 14:23). Romans 8:28 says, “All things work together for good to them that love God.” Irrespective of whatever may be happening; it will end up for your good, because according to Romans 8:37, you will be more than a conqueror. If you fight without God, you are bound to lose.
If you fight and ask for God’s support, you’ll win but may have some scars. If God does the fighting for you, He will win on your behalf and hand over the victory to you. That is what makes you more than a conqueror.
John 15:14 says, “Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you”. Obey God’s commandments if you truly love Him. You can also show that you love Him by giving. In 1 Kings 3:3-4, the Bible says that Solomon loved the Lord and thus sacrificed unto Him.
An evangelist went to Ghana when it was still called the Gold Coast. He met a woman who was so poor that she had only one dress that she wore every day. She gave her life to Christ and one day, she dropped a gold coin into the offering basket. The evangelist asked, “Looking at you, I’m suspecting you stole this gold coin from your master”. The woman said “No, I didn’t steal; I sold myself as a slave and this is the payment made to me. That indeed is a great demonstration of truly loving God. Do you truly love God?
KEY POINT: The proof of your love for God lies in your obedience to His word and commitment to Kingdom projects.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: LEVITICUS 19-21
Thank you for studying today’s Open Heaven – Loving God Truly – written by Pastor Enoch Adeboye
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Open Heaven 3 February 2023
