Category: Love

Valentine’s Day- God’s Love

~ jesusluvsall ~ 16 Comments

Valentine’s Day is today. For me it is just another day of the week nothing special, but being that I am single, my cynicism is perhaps understandable. I will go about a normal Wednesday for me of teaching my morning and evening classes.

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However, it is a good day to remind people of the eternal love of God for us. Every day is actually a good day for that, but since today is supposed to be a day for a celebration of love, here goes.

John 3:16- For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

God’s love is sacrificial and unconditional. God’s love for us does not depend on us or what we do, He loves us because he loves us. God is love, so it is in God’s nature to love us unconditionally.

Romans 5:8- But God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The depths of the sacrifice out of love for us is something we cannot fully comprehend. We can accept it by faith, but God’s love is so vast, so deep, so eternal, we cannot fully comprehend it.

So Happy Valentine’s Day. May this day, and all days, bring you reminders of God’s love for you.

Thank you for reading. God Bless.

Compassion- Showing Jesus to Others

~ jesusluvsall ~ 14 Comments

Many years ago I prayed a prayer that God has answered over and over again by giving me opportunities to experience what I asked for. My prayer was for Jesus to help me have his heart for people. I prayed that after reading Matthew 9:36

 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 

Jesus has connected me with people who are suffering time and time again. Yesterday morning was another one of those times in my Newcomer Refugee Welcome Class.

As we were practicing words for feelings, I asked the students simple questions of, “Are you…?” When I asked one woman the Are You questions, she began to cry. Her husband who speaks more English than the other students told me she had a miscarriage a few days before. So I paused the lesson and used Google Translate on speaker to communicate that the class is a safe place and that her feelings are important. I tried best I could to validate her as a person. Then I told her if she just wanted to sit and listen it was okay.

Imagine her experience. She is a refugee, has only been here for a few months, was pregnant, and then had a miscarriage losing her baby. The whirlwind of emotions she is feeling.

This morning I prayed for her and her husband for Jesus to draw them to him. Another teacher in another one of their classes is a Christian and speaks their language fluently, so I prayed for a connection to develop between them.

Basic truth- If we want people to believe Jesus loves them and cares for them, we need to love and care for them.

Thank you for reading. God Bless.

Music Mondays- In Your Arms by Laura Bretan

~ jesusluvsall ~ 11 Comments

In the arms of Jesus is the safest place to be. In the arms of Jesus, we are blessed for all of eternity. In the arms of Jesus, we experience the love of God. In the arms of Jesus, the powers of darkness have no power.

The hands and arms of Jesus are stretched out wide inviting us to come to him. The invitation is for all. No one left out. We only need to respond to Jesus in faith.

Thank you for reading. God Bless.

What Do We See in Others

~ jesusluvsall ~ 11 Comments

What do we see when we see someone who speaks English with an accent, speaks broken English, or no English? One thought that I have had many times is that if the roles were reversed and I was a refugee in their country, I would be the one speaking their language with an accent, or not at all.

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I had dinner with friends Monday evening and shared this thought with them. My friend Alekseyi was a pastor and had a high level job in Ukraine. My friend Carmen was a judge in Venezuela. My friend Luis was a math teacher in El Salvador. If I was a refugee in their country, they would be the professionals helping me.

My interactions with people from diverse people has given me respect for them. More important than their professions in their countries, or their roles in society, is that they are all created in God’s image.

Each person we meet is created in God’s image. Each person we meet is someone Jesus died for because of his great love for us. Each person we meet is someone who needs our Savior’s love.

In the eyes of Jesus there are only two groups of people, those who know Jesus as their Savior and those who do not. In John 3:17-18 Jesus said:

“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

My desire is for everyone I meet to come to know Jesus as their Savior. My desire is also to show the love of Jesus to those I meet and interact with that others might overlook- my refugee and immigrant friends.

Thank you for reading. God Bless.

Worship Is Reciprocal?

~ jesusluvsall ~ 15 Comments

I have been in the homes of people from various religions and seen the idols in their homes. People do various acts of worship such as placing fruit at the idol. However, the idols do not respond.

By contrast, thinking of being a Christian, I realize that worship is reciprocal. Why do I mean by that?

Worship is adoration, Worship is our expression of love to Jesus, to God, through song and through our lives. God does not need our worship. But he loves our worship because as imperfect as it is, it is our expression of love to him.

How can I say that worship is reciprocal? Zephaniah 3:17 says:

The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing.

Jesus sings over us. God sings over us. He expresses his love in many ways always loving and caring for us even singing over us. Many times I have awakened with a song in my spirit, a worship song. That is Jesus singing over me.

I think of a loving parent who sings to their child as their child goes to sleep or needs reassurance. That is an act of love by the parent. God is our heavenly father who sings over us. He wants a personal relationship with us and will not share us with any false gods.

What a blessing that God desires a personal relationship with us. A relationship of mutual expressions of love

Our Souls Are Precious to God

~ jesusluvsall ~ 19 Comments

Consider how precious a soul must be, when both God and the devil are after it. 

I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon who was a great preacher in England in the 1800s. Our souls are pursued by both God and Satan. Satan wants to destroy but God wants to save our souls. We are so precious to God that as John 3:16 says:

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. 

The question for us is whether we will respond to God calling us in Jesus or to Satan calling in the numerous false religions. God loves us and loves our souls. Satan hates us and our souls.

Take time today and reflect on how much you are worth to God. We are worth so much to God that he sent his best-Jesus. Jesus wants us to be with him forever in heaven. We cannot fathom the wonders that await those who believe in Jesus..

Thank you for reading. God Bless.

Adoption Is A Great Blessing

~ jesusluvsall ~ 9 Comments

A teenager in my city is a gifted athlete in various sports, Malachi Coleman. He has signed with the University of Nebraska to play football, American football, this fall. He and his sister were adopted by a Christian married couple. He was on the Kelly Clarkson show with his adoptive parents the other day and at the end of the interview shared that he believes that because he was adopted, he is still alive today. He has started a foundation to help foster children. It was a heart-warming and amazing real life story.

After watching the segment on YouTube, I thought about another adoption. Romans 8:14-17 says:

 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

When we trust in Jesus, God adopts us as his own, as his daughters and sons. We have the spirit of adoption not of fear. What an amazing blessing to be a child of God because of God’s grace and love in Jesus. John 1:12-13 says:

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God– children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

God adopts us and works in our lives to help us to change for the better to become more like Jesus.. We become part of the royal family of God.

I am sharing the interview segment from the show. It is an eleven minute clip and one that will be a blessing to watch.

Thank you for reading. God Bless.

Cause Effect

~ jesusluvsall ~ 12 Comments

Yesterday evening we were practicing cause effect sentences in my class. Being the light hearted comedian I can tend to be while teaching, I wrote some sentences for them.

‘The teacher cooked food but the students did not eat because it was burned.’

‘The teacher cooked food but the students did not eat because they did not want to get sick.’

‘The teacher cooked but the students did not eat because they know the teach is a bad cook.’

My students laughed as I wrote the sentences. 🙂

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So this morning cause effect is on my mind regarding the cause effect of Jesus coming the first time to become our Savior. John 3:16 uses for to show cause effect.

“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.”

God’s love for us why Jesus came.

I love the truth of Ephesians 2:10:

 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

What precedes it is that we are saved through faith in Jesus by God’s grace. Because of that, we become God’s handiwork. God equips us to live out our Christian faith and to serve him.

What cause effect verse comes to your mind from the bible?

Thank you for reading. God Bless.

The Prayer That Altered My Life

~ jesusluvsall ~ 16 Comments

It was a prayer that I had no idea would be so life altering. It was the prayer years ago I had no idea of how radically it would change my life. It was shortly after I rededicated my life to Jesus in 1989 that I prayed it.

Having experienced the love and forgiveness of Jesus and coming from a life that I describe as the pit in life in one of my upcoming books, Lifted Out Of The Pit/Called To The Nations, and having lived life trying to be uncaring mostly out of self protection, I prayed a simple prayer.

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What prompted me to pray it was experiencing the love of Jesus. As 1st John 4:19 says:

We love because he first loved us.

My desire was to have the compassion of Jesus, to feel what Jesus feels for others. Before that prayer, protecting myself at all costs was all I cared about. What was that prayer?

I asked Jesus to help me have his heart for others, for the lost and hurting in the world. I asked Jesus to help me see others the way he sees them. 2nd Corinthians 5:14-16:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.

The love of Jesus compelled me to pray that prayer and continues to compel me. What transpired after that was Jesus bringing many lost and downtrodden people across my path. Their stories pierced my heart as they would share their wounds in life with me. The first time it happened was only a few days after I prayed that prayer.

I was getting my hair cut and while cutting my hair the woman cutting my hair opened up and shared some wounds in life with me. After sharing with me, she told she did not understand why she felt she could share so much with me but for some reason she felt she could. That was a scenario that would happen again and again.

It was the best training for my ministry I have now of helping refugees and immigrants. My life transformed from being a sales person who only wanted to make money to being a home missionary/teacher who spends most of his time with those who have been deeply wounded in life. It all started with that prayer.

That prayer was tested with a few encounters and as I responded, more encounters followed until it led me to where I am today.

Thank you for reading. God Bless.

Happy Valentine’s Day

~ jesusluvsall ~ 13 Comments

So there is this holiday today called Valentine’s Day. This is one I sit out due to not being married and not having a girlfriend. However, I do wish all of my readers a Happy Valentine’s Day. A few fun interactions with friends from other countries coming your way in this post.

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My friends Diego and Camila from Brazil come to my Sunday morning group. Valentine’s Day in Brazil is June 12th. Sunday morning I asked Camila if she wanted to celebrate V-Day on Feb, 14th or June 12th. Camila answered- BOTH.

My friends Gregory and Bogdana from Ukraine are happy because Gregory got his first job in America. When they shared that with me Saturday morning, I encouraged Gregory with, “now that you are working, she can go shopping more.”

On a serious note, romantic love celebrated on Valentine’s Day is temporary. The love that is eternal is God’s love for us. God’s love for us is unconditional as Romans 5:8 says:


But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And as Romans 8:38-39 tells us:

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,  neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing can take God’s love from us.

So whatever situation we are in, married, single, divorced, widowed, there is a love that is eternal that we can celebrate every day- God’s love.

Thank you for reading. God Bless.