Written by Allison Sylvester-Conliffe
John 14:12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.
This is an awesome truth and most believers may stop right there with their Christian walk – diligently looking for the “greater works” to be manifested.
Jesus also said to His disciples,
Matthew 17:20 ...If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Other believers camp at this scripture and live there believing God for their physical needs, and exercise all their efforts in getting from God according to their faith. Both portions of Scripture, as mentioned above, mainly pertain to our faith in Jesus Christ, and this we must possess - but may I introduce us to a higher position that we should take in Christ? This indeed refers to the Commandment given to Moses in Deuteronomy 6:5 and as re-iterated by Jesus Christ when He came to the earth in Matthew 22:37…
Thou shall love the Lord with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind.
We could summarize that if we believe and have faith in God, we will see the blessings of God manifested. However, if we love the Lord, we could have Him and He could have us – blessings included.
As believers, we could say many times over, that we love God. We could worship Him and get very emotional in expressing to Him that we love Him – and we believe with all our heart that we do love Him.
As we worship the Lord, we remember the number of things that He has already done in our lives
- the many times that He had delivered us from physical death –
- we remember the fact that by His Grace, He has led us to salvation –
- we remember the times that we got the financial break-through that we were praying for -
- we remember the times that we were severely sick and that we received a miraculous healing from the Lord
We measure our love for God mostly by the gratitude that we feel after we see the manifestation of the goodness of God toward us. We do not remember, however, that the goodness of God is supposed to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4). Repentance means feeling remorse for offending God and turning away from sin.
God has placed for us in His Word, the measuring stick that He uses to determine whether we love Him or not. He said through His Son Jesus, the following words in John 14:15 - If ye love me, keep my commandments.

He gives us the ability to walk in the love of God because we cannot do it on our own efforts. All that is required of us is to ask the Holy Spirit’s help as we choose to do the Word of God, and He will help us in the areas where we fall short. He is faithful to come to our assistance and is always readily available to us.
I therefore leave you with this question that Jesus Christ still asks His disciples today –
“Do you love Me?”
I love that Scripture from Matthew 17 -- it fills me with hope for the possible in impossible situations! :)
ReplyDeleteYes Allison, I love Jesus. Thank you for the message. I understand fully.
ReplyDeleteI am following you today from In the Beauty of His Grip. And yes loving Jesus means to follow Him completely. And to do that we do have to sacrifice worldly things and make sure we are loving others.
ReplyDeleteBlessings to you,
Janis
Remembering is such a powerful thing for me. God has showed his power and faithfulness over and over again. Thanks for the reminder to remember. :) I'm glad I stopped by from #TellHisStory.
ReplyDeleteHi, Allison! I'm so glad that I saw this post. I have been thinking about this and questioning this in myself and others a lot for the past year, that we are called to repentance and that loving Christ means walking in obedience even when it doesn't make sense to anyone else. Do I truly love God if I'm not obedient? Thank you for the reminder that we do need to be obedient.
ReplyDeleteSDG just had a whole retreat about restoration and I am so thankful that He called us into the space to see what this can mean for our lives. Praising Him for the amazing ways He loves us.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing Good words for us to be encouraged to Love God and follow Him. He is so good and His will is always best (and found in the word)
ReplyDeleteHello Allison,
ReplyDeleteJesus' words are always powerful. I love the Lord and love praising and worshiping him! Have a blessed week. Visiting from Spiritual Sundays. I posted my Walking With God blog and my Judith Riddle Photography blog.
Blessings,
Judy
Thanks for sharing at Essential Fridays.
ReplyDeleteBlessings
Mel from Essential Thing Devotions
Thanks so much for sharing this over at WholeHearted Wednesdays. This was a real blessing.
ReplyDelete