Pastor Benjamin's Blog

Extracted from 3 July 2010 Arrow Service by Pastor Benjamin Lim

“Keep yourself in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”. Jude 21

Today I want to talk about the greatest asset that you can ever have in this life. Your greatest asset is neither a car, a house nor paper qualifications. When you have this asset, even when failure is knocking at your door, it will turn around for your good and success. That precious asset is the love of God.

In Jude 21, the word “keep” means “to guard” or “to fortress in”. This means that you don’t have to try to get God’s love because the love of God is already inside you. All you need to do is to guard and fortress it in. Keep it inside you by guarding the sense of God’s love for you.

What does the “love of God” refer to? Some people might think that it is about our love for God. 1 John 4:8, 9 tells us clearly that the “love of God” is simply God’s love for you:

“In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” [emphasis added]

That’s why John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son”. It doesn’t say, “For the world so loved God that God gave His only begotten Son”. It was God’s love for you and me that brought His Son to us.

Going back to 1 John 4:9 above, how do we know beyond doubt that God loves us? The answer lies in the truth that “He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins”. God’s love was manifested for you at the cross.

We oftentimes have the habit of judging God’s love by our situation. But you know what? Whether the rain stops or not, God loves us. Even if the breakthrough doesn’t seem to be coming, God still loves us. The display and affirmation of His love did not begin with your situation and neither will it end there; His love has a far longer and deeper time span – it was shown to be true in His death for your sins and mine at the cross. That was the beginning of the flood of His love in our lives, so don’t let the facts of your life – facts can and will often change – be the indicator of the extent of His love for you.

If the devil cannot rob us of the consciousness of His love for us, he cannot rob us of anything. Today, we have an enemy out there, and yes, he doesn’t know everything but when he sees the blessing and favor on your life, he will try to steal it. His goal is to attack and destroy because he hates you. The good news is, however, that the God who has defeated the enemy loves you and is on your side. As long as you fortress in the love of God, the devil cannot rob you of anything.

In Numbers 11:16, we find the Lord telling Moses to gather seventy men of the elders of Israel in the tabernacle of meeting. Moses had been leading the entire nation of Israel through the wilderness and had become weary. The Lord told him that He was going to take of the Spirit that was upon Moses and put it upon the seventy elders so that they might bear the burden of the people with him.

When they had gathered, the Lord took the Spirit that was upon Moses and granted them the same anointing. The Bible says that “it happened, when the Spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again” (v25). When the Spirit was upon them, there was the supernatural ability to do the things they could not do before.

But there were two men (Eldad and Medad) who remained in the camp and had not gone to the tabernacle of meeting. However, the Spirit also rested upon them and they prophesied in the camp.

Herein lies a principle for us to learn: You don’t have to be in the in-crowd. For whatever you want in this life, don’t feel short changed just because you see other people with it. You don’t need to try to mimic their behavior because you can be secure. But be secure in what? The revelation, I believe, is found in the names of these two men.

Eldad means “God has loved” and Medad means “Love” or “Affection”. So while these two men were not physically present at the tabernacle, what was sufficient was the consciousness they had that God loved them.

For those of you who were not at Legacy Camp, you don’t have to have been at the camp to have received what happened there. If you are always living in the consciousness of God’s love for you, you will never be left out. You know I once asked the Lord, “What’s so special about church camp? Why does the anointing seem to be particularly strong?” And He said, “That’s because at camp, we are purposeful in inundating ourselves with the consciousness of His love for us.” This means that the more conscious you are of God’s love for you, the more power, favour and blessing you will see released in your life. And then everyday will be like camp.

Romans 5:5 tells us, “And now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us”. The Bible-kind of hope is a confident expectation of good to come, and this expectation of good will not disappoint because of the love of God in your hearts.

Maybe today, you feel that your hopes are dashed and your dreams are broken. The thing to do is not to focus on your hope or your faith. Focus on His love. When you get a sense of His love, hope and faith are naturally powered up (Galatians 5:6).

This is so important, especially when you fail. Whether you feel good or bad, God still loves you. The consciousness of His love for you today is truly your greatest asset. When things are going wrong, the man who knows he is loved responds this way: “Because God loves me, He will use these seeming negative things to prepare me and eventually promote me. God will cause that stumbling block to become a stepping stone for me.”

Beloved, it’s not just about knowing but believing in the love of God. To believe is to trust – making the deliberate choice to rely and depend on. Thrust yourself into His love, jump into God’s embrace every day, for it is the sense of His love that will keep you till that seemingly distant, but nonetheless certain, day of your breakthrough comes.

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