37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40 (NKJV)
The foundation of prosperity is love. For too long, we have allowed the enemy to feel that we are nobody and to operate in fear. We have to keep God’s Word in our hearts. Jesus said that we should love the Lord with all our being and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. This loving of God with all our heart, mind and soul is the first great commandment. You cannot truly love God without an understanding and knowledge of Him. You have to come into a relationship with Him to understand His love. Here are some characteristics of God.
– He is the self-sufficient and self-existent God. He does not need us. He is not served by the hands of men (Acts 17:25). God is eternal. He has no beginning or end, but He acts in time.
– He is goodness (Romans 11:22). All that God is and does is worthy of approval. He is also gracious and this is seen in His name Yahweh. He is holiness (Revelations 4:8) and cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18).
– He is immutable (James 1:17). He is incomprehensible and cannot be fully known (Isaiah 40:28). He desires for us to search Him out.
– He cannot be contained. He is large and in charge. He is love.
– He is omnipotent. He is El Shaddai. He is omnipresent.
– He is all knowing so that nothing surprises or confuses Him. He is the life giver (Acts 17:25).
– He is righteousness (Romans 1:17). He is sovereign. He is absolutely independent, doing what He pleases, when He pleases and as He pleases. Nothing can stop Him from executing His purpose.
– He is Trinity (Matthew 28:19, 1 John 5:7). He is veracity and thus can never lie (Titus 1:2). We are supposed to fix all our affection on Him and be willing to give up everything for Him.
We must ask ourselves if we truly love Him with all of our heart and soul. Are you willing to die for Him and to give up all for Him? We must love Him with our substance. We are made in God’s image. We need to stop seeing the dirt in people’s lives and start seeing the image of God. We must not allow the enemy to make us hate ourselves either. Perfect love agreed with the Father so that we can love.
The enemy had blinded our eyes for years and God is telling us to get a revelation of the love that He has imparted in us. It is a love that never changes, but it changes things. Once we come to Jesus and accept Him as Lord and Saviour, He sees us as a new creature and loves us completely. He wants us to love our neighbour as we desire to be loved. Love is the foundation of our giving. Jesus loves us infinitely and wants us to love others as well. However, we first have to love ourselves.
