Love is the Greatest A Sample Devotion from Seeking God’s Heart

 

Love is the Greatest
A Sample Devotion from Seeking God’s Heart

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13 [NIV]

Why is love the greatest out of three worthy contenders? It is the greatest because it is God, for He is love (1 John 4:8). The apex of God’s attributes is love. This is why you go to God first for love. He is the lover of your soul, and the love of God far exceeds earth’s limited love. This is the reason you look to Jesus as the supreme example of how to love. He says the two greatest commands hinge on love (Matthew 22:37-39). Love is God’s gold standard; it rises above other compelling character traits such as faith and hope. Love is the theme that covers your character, seasons your service for Christ, and flavors your faith. It gives off a sweet aroma through trust, and gives gusto to grace. Love adds hotness to hope, potency to patience, and spice to selflessness. It brings brilliant technicolor to life, in contrast to our otherwise bland black-and-white loveless living. You can serve, provide for your families, cook a meal, feed the poor, attend church, and even worship; but if these lack love, you lose. You lose the blessing of God and you lose heaven’s reward because your motivation was not for your Master, Jesus Christ. Love is the greatest because it aligns your heart with Almighty God and is not lacking.

Love is God’s gold standard; it rises above other compelling character traits such as faith and hope.

You are the greatest when you love because it draws attention to Jesus. Hands down, heaven is happiest over your unconditional and relentless love. So meditate on love as you rise in the morning, work during the day, and eat dinner at night with your family. Your spouse longs to be loved; this is their greatest need from you. So love them lavishly in ways they want to be loved. Think often on love, and your actions will begin to follow your thoughts. What drives you? Is it love? Make love your motivation, and your happiness will spill over on to others. Love jump-starts joy and prolongs peace; it decreases pride and increases humility. Therefore, love long and hard, love unbiased and unencumbered, love early and love late. Love the rich, the poor, and everyone in between. Love during the good times and the bad. Love the deserving and undeserving. Linger long in your love, and you will be a lasting influence for the Lord.

Lastly, great love takes on different forms. Your situation may require tough love, full of accountability and action. Or your friend may be crying out for tender love, rich in encouragement and lots of listening. Pray for God’s wisdom and discernment on how to love, then trust Him with its application. Your greatest contribution to mankind is love on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ. Your greatest gift to God and others is love. Because He loved you first, you can love (1 John 4:19). God is great, and He makes you great with love. You are your greatest when you get and give love.

Make love your motivation, and your happiness will spill over on to others.

Therefore, by the grace of God, seek to be a great lover. Love is the greatest in God’s eyes.

Boyd Bailey, founder of Wisdom Hunters, Inc., wrote Seeking God’s Heart as he sought to apply God’s unchanging truth to his everyday life. Written in real time from Boyd Bailey’s daily walk with the Lord, Seeking God’s Heart features 365 three-minute devotionals that dive into Scripture and reveal God’s wisdom. These brief devotionals will bless you with insight into God’s unchanging Word daily. By patiently seeking the Lord each day, Christians will find comfort in trouble, peace in suffering, and hope in tragedy. 

Source

Seeking Gods Heart Devotional

https://get.revelationmedia.org/seekinggodsheart

Video: I Have Decided To Follow Jesus No Turning Back

 

Story Behind The Song "I Have Decided To Follow Jesus 

No Turning Back

About 150 years ago, there was a great revival in Wales, England.

As a result of this, many missionaries came all the way from England to northeast India to spread the Gospel.

The region known as Assam comprised of tribal communities that were quite primitive and well known for being hostile and aggressive.

The tribesmen were also called HEAD-HUNTERS because of a social custom which required the male members of the community to collect as many heads as possible, hence a man’s strength and ability to protect his wife was assessed by the number of heads he had collected. Therefore youths of marriageable age would try and collect as many heads as possible and hang them on the walls of his house, as the more heads a man had, the more eligible he was considered.

Into this hostile environment came a group of Welsh missionaries spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ but naturally they were not welcomed.

However, One Welsh missionary who was warned to go back because of the tribe's extremely hostile nature but ignored the warnings because he believed even these savage headhunters should have the opportunity to hear about the mercy of God, finally succeeded in converting a man, his wife, and two children.

The man, a Garo tribesman from the tribe of "Meghalaya" named 'Nokseng' and his family heard the Gospel and received Jesus as their Savior. The good news was too good to keep to themselves and they shared the Gospel with others in the tribe.

This man’s faith proved contagious and many villagers began to accept Christianity.

Angry, the village Chief summoned all the villagers, He then called the family who had first converted, to renounce their faith in public or face execution.

Moved by the Holy Spirit, the man sung his reply,
“I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back.”

Enraged at the refusal of the man, the Chief ordered his archers to arrow down the two children and they did.

As both boys lay twitching on the floor, the Chief asked, “Will you deny your faith?
You have lost both your children already. You will lose your wife too.”

But the man replied, again singing,
“Though none go with me, still I will follow, No turning back.”

The Chief was beside himself with fury and ordered his wife to be arrowed down and she was. In a moment, she joined her two children in death.

Now he asked for the last time, “I will give you one more opportunity to deny your faith and live.”

In the face of death the tribesman looked the chief in the eyes and replied,
"The cross before me the world behind me no turning back, No turning back."

The chief could not believe his ears and shot the tribesman dead like the rest of his family.

Jesus said if a grain of wheat dies it bears much fruit, and that day many of the villagers who witnessed the persecution of that tribesman and his family also decided to follow Jesus - even the chief himself became a follower of Jesus Christ.

The tribes man's last words became the song of the village and today a hundred years later it is sung all around the world.

"I have decided to follow Jesus.
No turning back, no turning back.""

https://www.nairaland.com/8326658/story-behind-song-decided-follow

Saturday Sermon: A Christian Without the Holy Spirit

A Christian without the Holy Spirit is like an egg without yolk.

Lack of the gift of discernment of the Holy Spirit has made many Christians to be deceived.

A true Christian does not need the validation of the world. 

As it is written in -

1 Corinthians 2:14-16 King James Version (KJV)

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man."

- Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,
The Publisher/Editor,
The Rhema Blog
Since 2005

What if God Makes An Igbo Pastor the Next G.O of the Redeemed Christian Church of God?

Is it true that millions of Yorubas in the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) will leave if God makes the next General Overseer an Igbo man?

I can even hear many Yorubas saying, "Ọlọrun  Májẹ!" meaning "God forbid!".

Why would they leave and migrate to the other popular "Yoruba"  churches, "Winners Chapel" of Bishop David Oyedepo, General Overseer of the Living Faith Ministries and Mountain of Fire and Miracles (MFM) of Pastor Dr. Daniel Kolawole Olukoya? Because they believe that the RCCG is  their Yoruba Pentecostal church.

I know what I am talking about, because I was working in the office of the G. O  with the Redemption Light magazine, the  official publication of the RCCG in 1998 as a  counselor. I know that the Yorubas see the church as tneir own.

Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye.

Even if the General Overseer, Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye tells them, "My Daddy said the next GO is an Igbo man."

They will say, "Haba! Daddy Adeboye should have told Almighty Daddy of all daddies, pe kole werk! That we no go gree. We will not accept an Igbo pastor to be the new G.O of our church.

Majority of the Yorubas believe that RCCG is a Yoruba church. But they are wrong. 

It was a white garment Yoruba church until God changed the name to the Redeemed Christian Church of God. Since then, it stopped being a white garment Yoruba church and has become a universal Pentecostal church belonging to God until the day of Rapture.

Remember what happened in January, 2017?

Ask Daddy Adeboye.

.

The fact is the Yoruba Assistant General Overseer is already rehearsing to succeed Pastor Adeboye and take over the leadership of the RCCG. 

Many of the Yorubas are even calling for his voluntary retirement since he is an old man of 82 years.

But they don't know that there is no retirement for him until God decides that or when he tells God that he is tired and wants to rest. 

I have heard and read in his biography, Stories of Pastor E. A. Adeboye: The Power of Testimony, that he was even poisoned to kill him, but the poisoned food did not kill him and in fact, to their amazement, he requested for more of the food to eat. 

He was ordained by the Almighty God and only God can decide the next G. O of the Redeemed Christian Church of God.

Case closed.

- by Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,

The Publisher/Editor,

The Rhema Blog

Since 2005 to date.

Now 20 years anniversary of publishing, sharing and spreading the Word of God in obedience to the Great Commission of our Messiah JESUS Christ.

The Lord gave the word, great was the company of those that published it.

-  Psalm 68:11. 

You can donate to support the blog with all the thanksgivings to Almighty God.

The Rhema Blog is an authorised distributor of Stories of Pastor E. A. Adeboye: The Power of Testimony, Large Print

1st Edition:ISBN-13: 978-1544697956, ISBN-10: 1544697953.

Open Letter To Churches on the Idolatry of Worshipping the Dead

Open Letter To Churches on the Idolatry of Worshipping the Dead 

Churches, especially the majority of the Pentecostal denominations in Nigeria must stop their idolatry of worshipping the dead by delaying burials of churchgoers who passed away for weeks, months and even years, because of ungodly reasons such as not having enough money for the burial ceremony.

It is ungodly and wrong to have fund raising to hire buses for burial ceremony with eating and drinking and sewing uniforms when your church has failed to raise money for evangelism and charity which our Lord JESUS Christ commanded us in the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations as He said in 

Matthew 28:19 ►

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,"

►

OBEY THE COMMANDMENT OF JESUS CHRIST as He said in 1 John 2:4: "If anyone says, "I know Him," but does not keep His commandments, he is a liar, and the truth is not in him."

Having public ceremony for the burial of the dead is ungodly and abomination in true Christianity.

This is the idolatry of worshipping the dead by useless ceremony that is against the commandments of Almighty God.

Stop all the abominations against the Word of God.

I have seen a church having more fund raising of money for burials than evangelism and charity.

And the ministers lie that they are led by the Holy Spirit.

Which holy spirit?

A church will raise more than one million naira for a burial ceremony of a churchgoer that they failed to support financially when he was alive and struggling to make ends meet.

Then you spend hundreds of thousands of naira for his burial.

Is this true Christianity or false religion in the camouflage of Christianity.

The worst is the church that prays for the dead.

Stop the charade of the parade of fake Christianity in the idolatry of burial ceremonies.

The dead don't need your ceremonies, prayers and tears.

Mark 12:27-

 He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.

Solemnly mourn with the bereaved and comfort them as much as you can with love.

- From The Rhema Blog,

https://therhema.blogspot.com/

Obeying the Great Commission of preaching, publishing, sharing and spreading the Word of God online since 2005.

The Greatest Thing After Creation

"Genesis 1:1" digital art video by Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima.

The greatest thing to happen after creation was communication.

Without communication there will be no civilization.

- Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima.

The most amazing verse in the Holy Bible is John 1:1.

Infact, creation began with communication when God commanded all things into existence by the command of His Word.

Genesis 1:3.

To create is to communicate.

There is no creation without communication.

Science has never doubted or refuted the existence of God; 

Infact, science has reaffirmed it: from the Big Bang Theory to Quantum Physics to Artificial Intelligence.

There is what I call the Equation of the existence of God.

The Equation of God is beyond mortal knowledge, because mortality cannot comprehend immortality.

Louisiana Orders Every Classroom To Display Ten Commandments

 Louisiana Orders Every Classroom To Display Ten Commandments 

Louisiana has become the first US state to order that every public school classroom up to university level must display a poster of the Ten Commandments.

The Ten Commandments (Biblical Hebrew: עֲשֶׂרֶת הַדְּבָרִים‎

The Republican-backed measure signed into law by Governor Jeff Landry on Wednesday describes the commandments as "the foundational documents of our state and national government".

The law is expected to be challenged by civil rights groups, which argue that it contravenes the separation between church and state enshrined in the first amendment to the US Constitution, the so-called Establishment Clause.

It says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The state law requires that a poster include the sacred text in "large, easily readable font" on a poster that is 11 inches by 14 inches (28cm by 35.5cm) and that the commandments are "the central focus" of the display.

It will also be shown alongside a four-paragraph "context statement" which will describe how the commandments "were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries".

The posters must be on display in all classrooms receiving state funding by 2025 - but no state funding is being offered to pay for the posters themselves.

Similar laws have recently been proposed by other Republican-led states, including Texas, Oklahoma and Utah.

There have been numerous legal battles over the display of the Ten Commandments in public buildings, including schools, courthouses and police stations.
In 1980, the US Supreme Court struck down a similar Kentucky law requiring that the document be displayed in elementary and high schools.

In a 5-4 vote, the high court ruled that the requirement that the Ten Commandments be posted "had no secular legislative purpose" and was "plainly religious in nature".

The court noted that in addition to criminal matters like killing and stealing, the Ten Commandments also made references to worshipping God including observing the Sabbath day.


https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp66xdxj0l3o"
https://www.nairaland.com/8130025/louisiana-orders-every-classroom-display#:~:text=Louisiana%20has%20become,news/articles/cp66xdxj0l3o

Wasted Offerings and Wasted Tithes

The offerings and tithes rejected by God.

Almighty God does not accept every offering and tithe.

The offerings and tithes from unrepentant sinners are abominations to God.

If you have any bitterness; done any evil in wickedness or lied against anyone, God will not accept your offering or your tithe.

If you don't obey the commandments of God, your offerings and tithes are unacceptable and wasted.

You cannot bribe God.

The Word of God is pure and true as written in the following verses from the Holy Bible.

◄ 1 John 4:20 ►

Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

◄ Matthew 5:23-24 ►

23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there; rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; 24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first. be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

►

First and foremost, REPENT and make reconciliation and restitution. Until you REPENT, your offerings and tithes will be rejected by Almighty God.

Pastors, Bishops, General Overseers, General Superintendents and other ministers of Christianityw who don't tell you the truth are fake.

- Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,

The Publisher/Editor,

The Rhema Blog

Since 2005.

Founder,

Christian Cinema in Nigeria (CCN)

Foursquare Gospel Church in Nigeria, Where is the Fire? 🔥

Foursquare Gospel Church in Nigeria, Where is the Fire? 🔥

What Happened To The Foursquare Gospel Church in Nigeria and Clarion for New Pentecostal Revival

The Foursquare Gospel Church was the first Pentecostal church I fellowshipped with in Nigeria from my childhood in the 1970s. My older cousin, John Nnorom of blessed memory took me to the parish in Okesuna (behind the old Sandgrouse Market) on Lagos Island. The church was among the most popular Pentecostal churches during the nationwide Pentecostal revival of the 1970s and continued to the 1990s with the overwhelming  Christ For All Nations (CfaN) crusades of the beloved Reinhard Bonnke (19 April 1940 - 7 December 2019), the amiable and humble German-American Pentecostal evangelist, principally known for his gospel missions throughout Africa.

There was no Deeper Christian Life Ministry and Living Faith Ministry in the early 1970s.

The history of the Pentecostal revival in Nigeria dates back to the 1930s before World War Two and reignited in the 1970s after the Nigerian civil war.

Read the following important reports:

1930s Revival in Nigeria Sparked by Pentecostal Evangel Magazine | Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center

Nigeria that led to the formation of the Assemblies of God in that nation can be traced back to a single issue of the Pentecostal Evangel, which somehow found its way from America to Africa in the early 1930s. Histories of the Assemblies of God of Nigeria credit the periodical for sparking a hunger for the baptism in the Holy Spirit among Nigerians.

https://ifphc.wordpress.com/2020/03/26/1930s-revival-in-nigeria-sparked-by-pentecostal-evangel-magazine/

20 Pentecostal Pioneers in Nigeria by Israel O. Olofinjana (Ebook) - 

https://www.everand.com/book/387812602/20-Pentecostal-Pioneers-in-Nigeria-Their-Lives-Their-Legacies

The Foursquare Gospel Mission came to Nigeria before the independence of the country from British colonial rule. And started formally In October, 1955 by the missionary couple; Rev and Mrs. Harold Curtis from America. 

I have been to the headquarters at 62/66 Akinwunmi Street Yaba, Lagos State where I had an interaction with the children and teens in 2003 for my National Essay Competition for Secondary Schools in Nigeria cosponsored by King of Kings Books International.

The Foursquare Gospel Church presently has a list of 4,712 churches in 173 districts and 841 zones in Nigeria. But how many of them are still active in the mission fields of evangelism?

Like the Assemblies of God Church in Nigeria, one of the pioneers of the Pentecostal revivals in the country, leadership crises have been reported in the Foursquare Gospel Church and my older cousin, John Nnorom even told me and took me along to visit one of their senior pastors in Idi Oro area of Mushin on the mainland of Lagos in the 1980s. Some members left to start another church.

The Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCC), 

Deeper Christian Life Ministry,  Living Faith Ministries, Christ Embassy, Mountain of Fire and Miracles (MFM) have overtaken the Foursquare Gospel Church in popularity in Nigeria. But many of their branches or parishes are not showing the same overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit of the Pentecostal revival decades ago.

They are becoming complacent about the commandments of God, because of compromising with the world in pursuit of titular status symbols of the society in the competition for keeping up with the Joneses.

Lest we forget, our Messiah Jesus Christ had the temptations to be in chariots and on horses and become the new King of Israel from the lineage of King David. But He chose to go about on foot and never rode even on a donkey until the time came for His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. 

These days, ministers of God are competing with celebrities in the world for palatial mansions, posh cars and red carpets and to be on the covers of the Forbes magazine.

They have forgotten that our Kingdom is not of this world.

Instead of competing for the salvation of souls, they are competing for real estate; spending millions of dollars that would have been invested in the upliftment of the underprivileged majority in the church and Nigeria.

Leadership is best by example. 

The leadership of the churches should be preparing for Rapture and not competing for the Forbes magazine and Guinness Book of Records.

Are you bearing fruits for God?

Or you are bearing fruits for the world?

The churches are quick to point accusing fingers at the upwardly mobile youths captivated by the new developments in mass communication with their addiction to smart phones and the internet. But they forget that the same inventions of digital information have made the accomplishment and fulfilment of the Word of God to come to pass as written in Matthew 24:14-

King James Version

14 And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come."

Psalm 19:4-
King James Version

4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun."

The present state of being neither hot not cold is a rebellion against the Holy Spirit and if God should spit us out, we would be in worse fate to lose the grace of God.

God forbid such a calamity!

The signs have not stopped following us. But we have allowed the leakages of power to undermine the foundation of our faith. 

Psalm 11:3-7
King James Version

3 If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

4 The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.

5 The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.

6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this shall be the portion of their cup.

7 For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness; his countenance doth behold the upright.

As Apostle Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:2-9:

2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3 unloving, [a]unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, 4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! 6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, 7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, disapproved concerning the faith; 9 but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all, as theirs also was."

"Romans 8:19-22
King James Version

19 For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."

Isaiah 40:28-31 King James Version (KJV)

Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding. He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no

 might he increaseth strength."

The size of our faith is the size of our strength.

We need another Pentecostal revival to stop the widespread loss of perishing souls as despondency is making millions of youths whose faith is ebbing away to walk away from the Kingdom of God.

We must fan the embers of the Pentecostal revival of the past decades to rekindle the flames of our waning faith in supremacy of the Holy Spirit.

We must use all the available means of mass communication to ignite the revival and to do the utmost as it is written in Romans 1:16-32:

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;

19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.

22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

23 And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:

27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;

29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

- By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima,

Publisher/Editor

The Rhema Blog

https://therhema.blogspot.com

Since 2005

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