We Don’t Stop – Loving the Lord with All Our Heart – Purity 1771
Purity 1771 09/25/2025 Purity 1771 Audio Podcast
Purity 1771 on YouTube:
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the sun rising on the horizon over a mist shrouded country road comes to us from yours truly as I capture this simple scene of beauty on the edge of the forest just before the cornfield on Waite Road back on September 23, 2023.
Well, it’s Thursday and I share this view of a simple country road as a visual reminder to get on or to stay on the path of Christian discipleship where our attempts to walk in the Spirit may not always be perfect but they are always a step in the right direction when we are following our hearts set on Christ.
You know following the Lord is sort of like my making a conscious decision to change my eating habits and to pursue the goal of obtaining my ideal weight. Even though I have struggled mightily with my weight over the years and fall into the temptation to over eat regularly, albeit not as much as I used to, I am still pursuing my goal and am actively seeking to renew my mind to change the way I think about food and trying to come into alignment with healthy habits that will give me success – ways that other people (some not even Christians) follow that lead to good physical health. I’m not trying to obtain the impossible dream – other people live there – and I trust that if I just continue to learn and do the things that promote my optimal health, I can eventually accomplish my goals. But I will never accomplish them if I believe the lie that I just can’t do it.
The choices we make shape our lives. If I set my priorities properly and actually love “good health” more than “instant gratification”, I will make choices that lead to good health. But if I doubt my abilities to do the right things to achieve good health and secretly love the things that sabotage my health goals, I will continue to make poor choices and never get to where I want to be.
The process of achieving my health goal is “faith based” – I have to believe success is possible – and I have to “live by faith” – by doing the things that I know are conducive to my success. But I also have to my heart in this. I have to love good health and the things that will give me good health, and frankly, I have to hate things that stop me from experiencing the thing I would love to experience.
In order to change you have to love the thing, you are pursuing with all your heart, soul, and mind and when you do that – regardless of setbacks – you never give up. WE DON”T STOP. You never stop dreaming the dream and putting forth your effort to achieve it, because it’s a love quest and you believe that some day you and “your love” will be together.
Anyway, speaking of love, I was inspired by an entry from “The Chosen – 40 Days with Jesus – Book Two” devotional and I am sharing it on the blog today to encourage us to never stop following the Lord and to continue in our efforts to love God with all our heart, soul, and minds. The authors of the Chosen devotional write:
“All Your Heart
“…. When the Pharisees ask, Jesus, which commandment was the greatest in the law,
Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ (Matthew 22:37–39, NIV)
Jesus’ answer encompassed every law. In other words, if you do these two things, the rest should take care of itself.
That shut the Pharisees up because there was nothing left to debate, but it also leveled the playing field. Suddenly, the average villager lost his advantage over the lunatics – because the opposite of loving Jesus isn’t hating Jesus, as the lunatics did. The opposite of loving Jesus is loving yourself more.
This is where we need a heart check. Of course, there will always be people who are ardently opposed to Christ. But there are far more “average villagers” in the world who are indifferent to what he has to say. And neither works.
Loving the Lord, our God, with all our hearts actually means that our response to him must be extreme. It means we must be relentless in our pursuit and obsessed with lifting Him up. If we’re not captivated by how we benefit from Jesus’s death, we will never allow Him to govern our every move. We’ll stay lustful in our appetites and continually feed on the things of this world.
To truly love Him means that being an average villager is no longer an option. Instead, we must love ourselves less and hate our sin more – as in, hate it so much we want it dead. We must die to ourselves so that we can love him more fully. So that we can love Him with all our hearts.” – from The Chosen- 40 Days with Jesus – Book Two by Jenkins, Hendricks, & Jenkins
Amen. Last night I had a discussion with a brother in Christ who admitted that he still struggles with feelings of low self-esteem and condemnation. Although he has done a lot of work through counseling, he still has a double-minded existence where he has great confidence in his abilities sometimes but at other times is afflicted with a persistent negative view of himself.
Although I believe that he would benefit greatly from a freedom appointment, I also think that this man may have a somewhat lukewarm relationship with the Lord because he said that he “can’t” walk in the Spirit all the time.
While I will never claim to be able to walk in the Spirit perfectly, I had to come against his assertion that, for him, walking in the spirit continually is impossible.
We are commanded by Jesus to abide in Him. If we couldn’t do it, He wouldn’t tell us to.
Likewise, He tells us to love the Lord with all our heart, soul, and mind. So, we can do that too.
We can’t believe the lie that we “can’t” walk in the Spirit “all the time”.
We not only have to believe it’s possible. We have to choose to do it.
Faith is a choice. If we believe, we still need to choose to follow the Lord, and we still need to love the Lord. It’s commandment number one!
So, if we are having trouble with our self-worth, we need to go to the Lord and receive our worth from Him. We have to agree with what the word of God says about us – like really believe it – and start abandoning our old life for the new life we have in Christ.
We have to forsake our old ways and thought patterns and choose to live as the new creation that we already are in Christ.
We have to get extreme in our love for the Lord and let His love change the way we do life.
When negative thoughts about ourselves come up, we have to renounce them as the lies that they are and declare by faith what God says is true about us.
When we fully surrender to living by faith, we discover that we CAN walk in the Spirit continually – because we are continually choosing to follow the Lord – and when we start living according to God’s truth we experience His goodness and watch our lives be transformed.
This is not “a whip yourself into shape” choice – this is a love choice. This is a “I really appreciate your love for me God” choice. So fire up the joy of your salvation and love the Lord with all your heart and let His love shape the way you think about yourself and the way you walk through this life.
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For those who want more evidence for Christianity than my simple encouragements provide, I offer apologist, Frank Turek’s website, https://crossexamined.org/.
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Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling” By John G. Kruis.
(While Bible verses on various topics of Counseling can be found with a quick Google search, we encourage you to purchase this resource to support the late author’s work. (The Quick Scripture Reference for Counseling By John G. Kruis on Amazon )
This morning’s meditation verse comes from the section on Peacemakers – Peacekeepers.
1 Peter 4:8 (NLT) Most important of all, continue to show deep love for each other, for love covers a multitude of sins.
Today’s verse is the second of two passages of scripture that fall under the eleventh point of our counseling reference guide resource section on Peacemakers – Peacekeepers.
11. To promote peace, harmony, and unity, love one another from the heart. Overlook many offenses, sins.
Today’s Bible verse encourages to love one another in the body of Christ and to let that love change we relate to one another, with the fruit of peace that comes from forgiveness.
The only way love is going to cover a multitude of sins is if that love guides us into actions based on God’s truth.
Love doesn’t turn a blind eye to sin. Love doesn’t allow us to persist in sin. And love doesn’t allow us to hold onto bitterness towards those who sin against us.
If the love of the Lord is our driving focus in life, we will turn from our sins to live a godly life and we will forgive those who sin against us and encourage them – sometimes with accountability or “tough love” to turn from their sins.
When we love one another deeply, we will forgive one another, and we will change the way we live so we don’t sin against one another.
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As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.com where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today we continue sharing from “Day by Day Along the Way” By Jay E. Adams.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage you all to purchase Adams’ books for your own private study and to support the late author’s work. This resource is available online for less than $20 at many sites.
Day 270
… a Man from God accredited to you by miracles and wonders and signs …
Acts 2:22
The wonders that Jesus performed, Peter said, accredited Him as the One He claimed to be—a man from God (v. 22). The word “miracle” in the original is “powers.” That is to say, He performed works more powerful than natural ones. “Wonders” speaks of the effect that these mighty works had upon those who observed them. “Signs” indicates the purpose of Jesus’ miracles—like signposts, they pointed to Who Jesus was and established His claims. “Signs” is the word that John exclusively used for miracles. He stressed the sign value of His miracles because his Book is replete with “testimony” to Jesus’ deity. His use is technical, bearing a legal sense. In 2 Corinthians 12:12, the same signs are said to attest to the apostles’ authority. You trust in a fully-authenticated Savior, and in the word of authentically attested apostles.[1]
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[1] Jay E. Adams, Day by Day along the Way (Cordova, TN: Institute for Nouthetic Studies, 2020), 278.
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