LOVER
OF MY SOUL
BREAD
3 The LORD
appeared to us in the past, saying: “I have loved you with an everlasting love;
I have drawn you with loving-kindness.” Jeremiah
31:3 (NIV)
4 “I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of
love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.” Hosea
11:4 (NIV)
4 “I will heal their waywardness and love them freely,
for my anger has turned away from them.” Hosea 14:4 (NIV)
17 “The LORD your
God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he
will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17
(NIV)
23 This is what the LORD
says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his
strength or the rich man boast of his riches, 24
but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and
knows me, that I am the LORD, who
exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,”
declares the LORD. Jeremiah 9:23-24 (NIV)
35 You
were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other. 36 From heaven he made you hear his voice
to discipline you. On earth he showed you his great fire, and you heard his
words from out of the fire. 37 Because
he loved your forefathers and chose their descendants after them, he brought
you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength, 38 to drive out before you nations
greater and stronger than you and to bring you into their land to give it to
you for your inheritance, as it is today.
Deuteronomy 4:35-38 (NIV)
8 Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. 9 He guides the humble in what is right and
teaches them his way. 10 All the
ways of the LORD are loving and
faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant. Psalm
25:8-10 (NIV)
11 One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that
you, O God, are strong, 12 and
that you, O Lord, are loving. Surely you will reward each person according to
what he has done. Psalm 62:11-12 (NIV)
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your
dominion endures through all generations. The LORD
is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made. 14 The LORD
upholds all those who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. Psalm 145:13-14
(NIV)
17 The LORD is righteous in all his ways and loving toward all he has made. 18 The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. 19 He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them. Psalm 145:17-19 (NIV)
76 May your
unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant. Psalm 119:76 (NIV)
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Do you know who you are? Do you know who
you were designed to be? Do you know the Father’s intent for your life? You are
meant to hear in your spirit the same thing Jesus heard when he came out of the
waters of baptism at the beginning of his ministry: ‘You are my Son, whom I
love; with you I am well pleased’….J I Packer puts it simply. ‘What is a
Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I
know is that a Christian is one who has God for his Father’…Our highest
privilege and deepest need is to experience the holy God as our loving Father,
to approach him without fear and to be assured of his fatherly care and
concern.” Greg
Ogden
“O dear soul, pray, and tell Him everything
that is wanting, be it ever so great or ever so small. His
loving-kindness will hear even the least petition; nay, He will seem to be
ignorant of what thou dost not tell Him.
But whatever is poured out before Him is actually addressed and lodged
in its proper place, and does not lie upon thy heart any longer, but upon His
heart, which cannot rest till you are relieved.
And if you have experienced His help aforetime in great or small things,
you may depend on His readiness to help you out of troubles hereafter; only be
earnest in prayer for His help. We often
imagine we were willing and drawing near to Him, but He was unwilling, and
refused our request; but it is not so:
He rather draws us, and desires our relief more than we do; for it is He
that works even this willing mind.”
K.H. Von Bogatzky
“To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives-the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections-that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.” Henri Nouwen
“What can be deeper than His
Presence and constant care? In a world
in which multitudes feel isolated and alienated, we have the permanent
companionship of the most loving and powerful Being in the universe. Nothing could be more important and life
shaping than that. Whatever difficulty
we go through, He nevertheless holds us by the hand.” Chris Tiegreen
“In this
promise, God gives to His people everything.
‘Never will I leave you.’ Then no
attribute of God can cease to be engaged for us. Is He mighty?
He will show Himself strong on the behalf of them that trust Him. Is He love?
Then with loving-kindness He will have mercy upon us. Whatever attributes may compose the character
of Deity, every one of them to its fullest extent shall be engaged on our
side.” Charles H. Spurgeon
“Knowing Him as loving Father
is the foundation for intimate relationship with Him. First Corinthians 13:4-7
is a picture of the Father's love. Personalize it, and receive it for yourself.
My Father who loves me is patient with me, kind to me.... My Father's love is
not rude, nor self-seeking, not easily angered, and keeps no record of wrongs.
My Father's love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. My
Father's love always protects me, always trusts me, always hopes [believes the
best about me], always perseveres and never gives up on me. My Father's love
for me never fails.” Sylvia Gunter
“Satan
woos us with pleasantness to seek our bondage (as if self wasn’t enough) and
then bites us with guilt and shame. Indeed,
his desire is to entice us towards a conduct that would ruin us. He is our enemy not our friend. God, on the other hand, lovingly woos us from
“the jaws of distress” - which is every form of sin and captivity holding us
tightly, to seek our freedom. Christ
came to set us free. We are not to be
yoked again to slavery. Make no mistake
about it – sin harm’s. Indeed, it is a
death sentence. Satan wants us to
believe that God is holding out on us, that He does not have our best interest
at heart while all the while, through the blood of Jesus, all God seeks to hold
out on us is death and destruction.” BHY
“(Why does God) bother to speak to
us? The truly staggering answer that the
Bible gives to this question is that God’s purpose in revelation is to make
friends with us. It was to this end that
he created us rational beings, bearing his image, able to think and hear and
speak and love; he wanted there to be genuine personal affection and
friendship, two-sided, between himself and us—a relation, not like that between
a man and his dog, but like that of a father to his child, or a husband to his
wife. Loving friendship between two
persons has no ulterior motive; it is an end in itself. And this is God’s end
in revelation. He speaks to us simply to fulfill the purpose for which we were
made; that is, to bring into being a relationship in which he is a friend to
us, and we to him, he finding his joy in giving us gifts and we finding ours in
giving him thanks”. J I
Packer
“A strong confidence in God’s loving intentions and enveloping care
fortifies us to face whatever life throws at us.” Ray
Ortlund
“My hope rests on
the willing, faithful, powerful, and loving presence of God with me. It is
the ultimate gift of gifts to everyone who walks the harsh and bumpy road
between birth and eternity. Our hope is not found in understanding why God
allowed suffering into our lives. Our hope is
not found in the belief that somehow we will tough our way through. Our hope is
not found in doctors, lawyers, pastors, family, or friends. Our hope is not found in our resilience or
ingenuity. Our hope is not found in ideas
or things. Though
we may look to all those for temporary help, ultimately our hope rests in the
faithful and gracious presence of the Lord with us.” Paul David Tripp
HEART SAVOR
·
God loves
you with an everlasting love and He loves everyone like He loves you.
·
He draws us
with cords of loving kindness.
·
If our
loving God is on our side what need have we to fear?
