How can we love someone we haven't seen, and yet love Him constantly? Loving the Lord with your mind helps with that question. God can preoccupy your mind even when you are not consciously thinking of Him.



"You love Him even though you have never seen Him. Though you do not see Him now, you trust Him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy." (1 Peter 1:8)

Intentional Life

Your intentional life begins in the interior, but doesn't end there. It controls, frames and results in an effective exterior life, and you will get to know the God you love better.



"A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart." (Luke 6:45)

Loving God, loving others

A life of love toward God shapes a life of love toward neighbor.



I am writing to remind you, dear friends, that we should love one another. This is not a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning." (2 John 5)

God is God

It is right to be involved with loving God, preoccupied with loving Jesus, simply because God is God.

Then mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet with it, wiping His feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragance. (John 12:3)

God First

Loving Jesus with passion experiences God as someone important in Himself, meaningful in Himself, whether or not He performs for us.

He said, "I came naked from my mother's womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The LORD gave m what i had, and the LORD has taken it away. Praise the name of the LORD!" (Job 1:21)

God-life

As the foundation-laying event of salvation, the very life of God-eternal life-entered us. We must live out that very God-life.

  

And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. (1 John 5:11)

A Passionate Life

The passionate life involves living the God-life for God, life by God.

This is why we work hard and continue to struggle, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people and particularly of all believers. (1 Timothy 4:10)

Love

Love. That's soul passion in a word. For what a man loves, he will follow. What a woman values, she will obey. For Christians, God is to be our ultimate love, our only passion.

Either way, Christ's love control us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. (2 Corinthians 5:14)

Obedience

The wise person transliterates God's expectation into core values. He then translates them into strategies for obedience. The first action acknowledges the timeless practicality of God's Word; the second acknowledges the timely practicaly of God's Word.

All Scripture is inspired by God an is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. (2 Timothy 3:16)

The Most Solid Foundation

God laid a new creation foundation for all people, a stratum wide enough and strong enough to hold everyone who wants to build his of her life on that solid rock foundation.

For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building. (1 Corinthians 3:9)

The New Foundation

The new foundation and provision for rootedness was laid in human time by Jesus. God erected a “tree” as a symbol and instrument to provide the underlying support that our lives require, for by dying on the cross-tree Jesus attacked the root cause of human foundationlessness – sin.

But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When He was hung on the cross, He took upon Himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13)

You Cannot Trust On Your Self

Your self-reliant, self-oriented, self-centered, self-created ways of saving yourself, of being your own rock, cannot be trusted anymore.

God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. (Ephesians 2:8)

Critical Issue of Life

If you have not embraced Jesus as the bedrock of life, you must immediately deal with the critical issue that separates you from God, the founder and foundation of all reality.

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. (Ephesians 2:1)

Maintaining Spiritual Foundation

The maintenance of a spiritual foundation, the making of a godly life, remains an impossible God-thing in your life, but it also remains a possible God's thing in your life.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. (Ephesians 3:20)

Building a Sturdy Life

A person must embrace the Lord Jesus - His work for one's salvation, and His words for one's foundation - to build a sturdy life. The foundation must not only serve as a foundation on which to build but a foundation by which to live.

  For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that Was His plan from before the beginning of time - to show us His grace ghrough Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 1:9)

Keeping Spiritual Foundation

The maitnance of a spiritual foundation, the making of a godly life, remains an impossible God-thing in your life, but it also remains a possible God's thing in your life.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. (Ephesians 3:20)

Foundation

A person must embrace the Lord Jesus - His work for one's salvation, and His words for one's foundation - to build a sturdy life. The foundation must not only serve as a foundation on which to build but a foundation by which to live.

For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was His plan from before the beginning of time - to show us His grace ghrough Christ Jesus. (2 Timothy 1:9)

Restoring life’s foundation

How can we pursue a well-built, long-lasting house, a life that is well-grounded and well purposed? I point you to the basic action-laying the right foundation, or for many of us, restoring life’s foundation to original design, intent, and quality.

If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. (1 Corinthians 3:14)

Foundation

Your foundation rock secures your salvation but we must lay a foundation on the rock with the right materials, if your foundation has shifted due to hostile subsoil conditions, we need to undertake some foundation restoration.

Because of God’s grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now others are building on it. But whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful. (1 Corinthians 3:10)

Eternal Assurance

Jesus’ foundational role in your life is secured by His eternal salvation. It is also possible to be sustained in present existence by that foundation.

God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him. (1 John 4:9)

The Most Solid Foundation

God laid a new creation foundation for all people, a stratum wide enough and strong enough to hold everyone who wants to build his of her life on that solid rock foundation.



For we are both God’s workers. And you are God’s field. You are God’s building. (1 Corinthians 3:9)

The New Foundation

The new foundation and provision for rootedness was laid in human time by Jesus. God erected a “tree” as a symbol and instrument to provide the underlying support that our lives require, for by dying on the cross-tree Jesus attacked the root cause of human foundationlessness – sin.

But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When He was hung on the cross, He took upon Himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” (Galatians 3:13)

You Cannot Trust On Your Self

Your self-reliant, self-oriented, self-centered, self-created ways of saving yourself, of being your own rock, cannot be trusted anymore.

God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. (Ephesians 2:8)

The Critical Issue of life

If you have not embraced Jesus as the bedrock of life, you must immediately deal with the critical issue that separates you from God, the founder and foundation of all reality.

Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. (Ephesians 2:1)

The Bedrock

Jesus is the bedrock on which you can build with the right or wrong materials; but there is no negotiation who the bedrock is.

But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames. (1 Corinthians 3:15)

The First Person

The Bible says that not only is Jesus God, as the First Person (the beginner) of reality, He is the First Person of present, ongoing reality, the director and determiner of present reality.


And now in these final days, He has spoken to us through His Son. God promised everything to the Son as an inheritance, and through the Son He created the universe. Hebrews 1:2

The Foundation

The Bible clearly commends the Lord Jesus Christ, God's only Son, as the foundation for an individual's life. The Lord Jesus Christ qualifies as the foundation for human life by virtue of Him being God.


For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have--Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:11

Comprehensive Foundation

God is the only One who qualifies as a comprehensive foundation--the causative, carrying, and commanding power--for human life.

And human hands can't serve His needs--for He has no needs. He Himself gives life and breath to everything, and He satisfies every need. Acts 17:25

Concept of foundation

God fits any and every sense of the concept of foundation.

I trust in God, so why should I be afraid? What can mere mortals do to me? Psalm 56:11

Hit the wrong mark

We were created to relate to God, to reverence Him, to reflect His glory on the earth. Instead, we sinned. We missed the right mark and we hit the wrong mark.

For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Romans 3:23

Foundation problem

Unfortunately, with the rest of humanity, you and I face a foundation problem. The Bible says we crashed at the Fall.

Still, everyone died--from the time of Adam to the time of Moses--even those who did not disobey an explicit commandment of God, as Adam did. Now Adam is a symbol, a representation of Christ, who was yet to come. Romans 5:14

Purity in heart

Purity in heart before God shows transparency before God -- transparency that translates into internal honesty before God and in the undivided priority given to His kingdom.

God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God. Matthew 5:8

Feeble foundation?

The first thing in pursuing the intentional life is to take care of the first thing -- the foundation of your life. If there ever was a feeble foundation, it is your self and your soul knows it well.

As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world's interest in me has also died. Galatians 6:14

Ultra-Passion

Setting your heart upon the Lord Jesus Christ, being affected by Him, and therefore willing to serve no matter what the cost, becomes our underlying passion--the radical, drastic, complete, total, out-and-out ultra-passion toward God Himself.

I am glad when I suffer for you in my body, for I am participating in the sufferings of Christ that continue for His body, the church. Colossians 1:24