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Peggy Joyce Ruth, aka "the Psalm 91 Lady" is author of a variety of Psalm 91 book titles with over six million copies in print. She taught a weekly Adult Bible Study for more than 35 years in her church in Central Texas as she shared how to make God’s Word your final authority. Known for her easy-to-understand style of communicating the Word of God and warm storytelling, Peggy Joyce's heart is that her books and teachings will bring you into the same freedom from fear she experienced and help you put God's Word to work in your life.
We're going to be talking tonight about return to your first love. I don't know whether you've ever had a scripture just kind of rise up in your spirit and you knew it was from the Holy Spirit. Well, I can remember the exact spot where I was. I was coming down the Country Club Road when this scripture just loomed up in my spirit. So, as soon as I got home, I ran in to look it up in my Bible.
Speaker 1:Now, I was familiar with the scripture, but I wanted to see the exact wording because God had spoken it so clearly to me. Okay, in Revelation chapter two, To the angel of the church at Ephesus write. Now, Ephesus was not a carnal church. You know, it was not like the church at Corinth. Ephesus was the church to which Paul was able to write some of his deepest revelation.
Speaker 1:That's where people go many times when they want to really get something deep from the Lord. So, this was being written now to a mature church. It wasn't being written to young Christians. And so, in Revelation two, starting with verse one, To the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven golden lamp stands. Now, the lamp stands represented churches.
Speaker 1:I know the one who walks among the seven churches says that I know his deeds and your toil are your work, your perseverance, and that you cannot endure evil men, and you put to test those who call themselves apostles, and they're not, and you have found them now to be false. Okay, that's quite an introduction there that he's given us here for this church. Now, the Christians in Ephesus discerned good and evil, and they chose to require good. They were very tenacious there, and they persevered under trial. They absolutely determined that they weren't going to grow weary in well doing.
Speaker 1:They kept after the Word. But he goes on to say then in verse four, he was bragging on them, but then in verse four he says, But I found this one thing against you. And he said, You have left your first love. Well, that wasn't saying that they had turned away from Christ and had walked away. That's not what he was saying.
Speaker 1:They hadn't renounced the Lord. But he was saying that Christ no longer occupied the first place. In other words, they were not in their young first love like they had been at one time. Okay, now, do you remember your first love? You couldn't eat, you couldn't sleep, you know, you couldn't think or talk about anything else.
Speaker 1:This actually happened to a friend of ours. This missionary friend was visiting in the home of this pastor and his wife. And the young son of the pastor, he was in his twenties, and he was eating dinner with them that night. And after dinner, the missionary had asked him, How long have you been in love with Mary? And his face turned really red and he said, What makes you think I'm in love with Mary?
Speaker 1:And the missionary friend then, he told him, he said, Well, we've been at the table for an hour and a half, and you've talked of nothing else except Mary. So, that's one of the earmarks then of a first love. John was saying the church at Ephesus in Revelation, You've left your first love. You've left the place where you couldn't sleep or think or eat or talk very much about anything else except the Lord. And he says, You've gotten busy.
Speaker 1:You've gotten caught up with other things. And he said, It's taking your time and it's taking your attention. Now, I believe this Bible study is one that is to be taken very personally and individually by every one of us so that we'll do a little bit of soul searching. I want you to think back to a time in your life when you had this life changing experience with the Lord. It might have been at the time when you were born again, or it could be much more recently, maybe a time when you've had just a new fresh touch from God.
Speaker 1:And, oh, it was just it was so wonderful. Do you remember how you felt the excitement of that young first love? Okay, I've had special encounters with God when I felt like I was just in this little cocoon of peace, almost separated from the rest of the world. And it does feel so wonderful because you know that God has everything under control. You know that you can trust Him with anything.
Speaker 1:And you could almost feel His arms around you during that time. I know you've all felt that at different times, and it is wonderful. And you remember that there would be times that you'd be in a crowd and you could feel yourself smiling on the inside because you were thinking about the Lord. You were thinking about how wonderful He is and what all He's done for you. It was kind of like you had a secret that no one else knew and that secret was just between you and the Lord.
Speaker 1:There might be a 100 people there in the mall with you, but you're so in tune with the Lord that your heart's just fluttering. And you keep thanking Him over and over for being right there, so close, that you can feel His presence every moment. And I know you've all had those those moments. Now, the sense of God's presence was so near and so sweet. It was like an invisible, precious companion that was right there with you.
Speaker 1:No one else could see him, but you knew he was right there. And nothing else in the world really mattered at the time except that companionship. Now, even your problems seem small in comparison. We're never at a time when we don't have some problems. But during those times when you were so close to the Lord, it was kind of like those problems where we're just being given to the Lord and He was taking them for you because God's presence was so real.
Speaker 1:And even when you woke in the middle of the night many times, you could just feel His presence. Now, I can remember during those times that I felt like I could tackle any problem that came along. You know what I'm talking about, where you just felt like, Nothing's too big. God's right here, and he can take care of it. And you wanted everyone to have what you were experiencing.
Speaker 1:Hey, that must have been what the songwriter was feeling when he wrote that little chorus. Now, I'm gonna date myself because this chorus goes back a long way, But you knew that he was having a wonderful day with the Lord because his song said, It's bubbling, it's bubbling, it's bubbling in my soul. I'm singing, I'm laughing since Jesus made me whole. Folks don't understand it nor can I keep it quiet? It's bubbling, bubbling, bubbling, bubbling day and night.
Speaker 1:And I remember we used to sing that and, boy, by the time you got through singing it, you were just ready to bounce up and down. You were so excited. I can remember because there was nothing else that could express the feelings that I was having at that time. So, you know what I'm talking about. And I can remember thinking that I didn't want to leave the house without my Bible.
Speaker 1:You know, it just felt so secure to have it close by, to have it just in my arms if I needed it. And I was constantly using my Bible markers because something would come up and I'd hear a scripture or I'd hear somebody say something and I wanted to have my Bible marker so I could mark it right then in my Bible. And everybody was sharing what God had given them and what He was showing them. And you remember what it felt like to awaken in the middle of the night and just reach over to the nightstand and touch the Bible and hold it up against you because it gave you that warm feeling of knowing God's right here. He never leaves me and He never forsakes me.
Speaker 1:And it was so good. It was the physical sense of God's presence that was so near and so sweet. Now, some of you guys now, you had your own unique way of experiencing this nearness of God. Guys do it differently many times than the girls do. But, however it affected you, it was good and it was real and it made you feel so close to the Lord.
Speaker 1:Well, I remember God is speaking, and he's saying to some extent now, we've left some of the freshness of that first love that I just described. And I think we all go through times when we get away from that just wanting to be with the Lord every minute and just being your very first love. And the Lord is saying that He's calling us back to our first love. He's constantly pulling on us, getting us right into God's presence. And He's saying to each one of us, I want that spark to stay alive on the inside of you.
Speaker 1:He said, I don't want you to lose that spark. Now, moving away from our first love could be compared then to a marriage that's gone a little bit complacent. Know, now I'm not talking about a marriage that's on the rocks or one that's getting ready for a divorce, but just one that has begun to take each other for granted and it's kind of lost its sparkle. One that has quit sitting in front of the fireplace with each other and holding hands, where the marriage has kind of gotten away from that. Okay, that's what our relationship to God should be compared to when it begins to lose a little bit of its sparkle.
Speaker 1:Just not really sitting in front of the fireplace holding hands with the Lord and talking to Him like we used to. And the Lord began to ask me the question, What happens to a marriage when the sparkle is gone? What happens to a marriage? Well, I've done enough marriage counseling that I know when the spark's gone out of a marriage that one of two things is going to happen. Either the couple are going to do something about it, they're going to see to it that it gets changed, or they'll go on maybe living together.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that they leave each other, but their lives kind of start going in two different directions because it never stays the same. It will go up or down depending on what the couple decides to do. Okay, now they're either going to make the effort to put the sparkle back or they're going to grow apart. Now, for the marriage that chooses to do something about it, they're going to either go to counseling or maybe they'll start reading a book together on mending marriages or maybe they'll listen to just marriage tapes of ones that are doing so well in their marriage. Maybe the man will read the book Maxime's Manhood, or maybe he'll read the book Do Yourself a Favor, Love Your Wife, and he'll start pursuing his wife again.
Speaker 1:Or the wife she may read the book, You Can Be the Wife of a Happy Husband. Anyway, if they're going to put that marriage together, they're going to start doing something. They might start having a once a week date and maybe go out to eat or be together. And they'll start learning verbally how to start expressing their appreciation again. The point is, if they decide to do something now with their marriage, then there were some steps that they had to take to put the spark back.
Speaker 1:For life to begin to come back into that marriage, the sparkle has to be rekindled. It's not going to happen on its own. And that's what a lot of people don't realize. They think, Well, someday my marriage is going to get a little better. We're just going through a period right now.
Speaker 1:No, it won't, unless you do something. And it's the exact same way. There have to be some steps to be taken to put the life back in our first love with God. It doesn't just get back on its own. And this is what I'm wanting you to hear If you see that the spark is little bit faded, it's not quite what it used to be, don't just think, Okay, it's going to be better in a week or two.
Speaker 1:It's going to be better in a month or two. No. Realize it's not going to get better unless you do something. And that's what God's telling us. Do what has to be done.
Speaker 1:Now, I feel like the Lord gave me three very simple steps to our putting the spark back into our first love with the Lord. Don't mark these off. They're going to sound very simple, but I promise you they'll really work. Now, these three steps, done from the heart, will bring life back into your relationship and it'll do it every single time. Now, the first way to put the spark back into our love walk with God is that personal, intimate time with Him.
Speaker 1:Now, you have to guard against your love walk with God because it can get very ritualistic. It can become just a ritual. You don't mean for it to. You don't know how did I get away from it? How did I get here, Lord?
Speaker 1:But unless you do something about it, it won't get better. It'll get worse. A ritual is something that you do, but your heart's not completely in it, if you want to know how God sees a ritual. Okay, it's possible to have time alone with the Lord but your heart not be in it totally. If you'll think for a minute, you may remember back to times.
Speaker 1:I see all of you in here, and y'all seem to have your relationship with the Lord at an optimum right now, and nothing makes me happier than that. But I can promise you there will come a time, Satan sees to it, that you start feeling a little bit far away from the Lord. One fact that keeps it from becoming a ritual is when you realize that God sincerely wants to have time alone with you. There's nothing that can make you want to get back close to the Lord again anymore than realizing God wants to have time alone with you. When we know that the God of the universe wants to be with us, then there's something inside of us that says, oh, wow.
Speaker 1:I want Him too. One thing that made me really want to spend time alone with my husband You know, you can kind of compare these things. What made me want to spend time alone with my husband was knowing that he sincerely wanted to be with me. Same way with the Lord when you know that he sincerely wants to be alone with you. But when I knew that Jack wanted to be with me, it touched my heart.
Speaker 1:It's exactly the same way with God. Nothing would draw you into that intimate time with the Lord more than realizing that He longs to be with you. You need to stop and just remind yourself, the Lord wants to be with me. He loves me. He wants time alone with me.
Speaker 1:Have you ever stopped to realize that God longs to have sweet fellowship alone with you every day? Now, some of you may be thinking, well, I I can believe that God wants private fellowship time alone with those so and so, you know, because they're really close to the Lord. But I really can't believe that he wants to have time with me because who am I? You know, I mess up so often. I'm probably the last one that God wants to have time with.
Speaker 1:Some people feel so unworthy that they really can't believe that God wants time with them, but He does. We have to realize God does want time with each one of us. We're His children. He loves us. His desire is for that personal one on one intimate time with each one of His children individually.
Speaker 1:It's something He wants because He created each one of us. He created us individually and He loves each one of us perfectly. Now, this number one is a must if we want to get the spark back because you're going to have some times. You're young now, but you're going to have some times when that spark is not quite as vibrant as you want it to be. And God wants you to get it back.
Speaker 1:It doesn't come back on its own. And God's waiting there, but He wants you to realize there's a few things to do that'll get that spark going again. Practice using the alone time now that you have to get very close to the Lord. We have to choose to do that. It doesn't happen just automatically.
Speaker 1:Maybe while you're alone driving in a car, turn the radio off and start just talking to God. You know, we think we've got to have that radio going the minute we get in the car. Turn it off when you're alone in the car and just start talking to Him. When you're out taking your walk or when you're out doing something alone, use that time to just say, Lord, I know you're right here. I want to use this time just to talk to you, just to hear your voice.
Speaker 1:Sing to the Lord. You don't have to have a good voice. He loves hearing you sing to Him. Pour out your heart to Him. Tell Him what's going on.
Speaker 1:Tell Him how much you love Him. You may never have ever stopped and said, Lord, I just love You. If you'll start doing that, can't I even begin to tell you what it'll do on the inside when you start telling, God, I just love You. I just love being close to You. I want to feel Your presence.
Speaker 1:Lord, I know You love me, and I want to be Your best friend. Now, it may even feel awkward at first, especially if you've gotten out of the habit of doing it that or maybe you've never done that. Just start it. You can't even imagine what it'll do. But renew the habit if gone cold.
Speaker 1:In Genesis five, I've never really enjoyed reading the genealogy in the Old Testament, but even the genealogy can be anointed to speak truth to us at times. Now, the genealogy covers from the time of creation clear to the flood. So, it's covering quite a bit of time, about a thousand years. I want you to notice that it starts out in verse three by saying Adam lived. And then, if you look down in verse seven, Seth lived.
Speaker 1:Then, in verse 12, Kenan lived. And you go on down, verse 18, Jared lived. But, when you get to verse 22, it says, Enoch walked with God. It's the only one that that was said about. Now, this was not said about any of the others clear from Adam all the way through all the generations.
Speaker 1:And in Genesis five verse 24, Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Okay, Enoch was translated. He was raptured. He got so close to the Lord that he just went on to be with the Lord. Now, these two short scriptures now are all we know about in the Old Testament about the life of Enoch.
Speaker 1:But in these two short verses, it tells us enough to let us know volumes about this man. It lets us know volumes about his walk with God. In fact, even in the New Testament, we find that the New Testament writer in Hebrews 11 verse five, he includes Enoch in his Hebrews hall of faith. They couldn't put everybody in the hall of faith. So, one man out of the Old Testament here that just had one sentence written about him in the Old Testament and yet he was listed in the Hebrew hall of faith.
Speaker 1:It says, By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not even see death. Okay, he didn't die. He was not found because it says God took him. He didn't take him for a bad reason. He took him for a very good reason, and it was because he had obtained the witness that before being taken up he was pleasing to God.
Speaker 1:Okay, why was Enoch pleasing now to God? Because God says that he walked with God. You know, it doesn't take much to please God. If it pleased God enough for Enoch to walk with God that He took him up, just brought him up with him, then that tells us if you want to know how to get close to God, if you want to know something that'll make you close to God, realize God's so pleased if we just decide we're going to walk with Him every day. That's what made him please Him.
Speaker 1:Now, he kept his first love fresh and alive with God. And, he took the time to walk with God and to talk with God. We need to take time every single day. I know we're busy, but we need to take some time every day to have this time where we just get alone with God and just walk with Him and talk with Him for a minute. And that's what it means to have sweet fellowship with the Lord.
Speaker 1:Now, God wants our time with Him to be new every morning from the heart. You know, sometimes we do something over and over and over and it just gets to be old hat. But no, we need to absolutely realize that our time with the Lord may not be a lot of time every day, but our time with the Lord needs to be new every morning. And that's what keeps life flowing then through our love walk. That's what the spark is.
Speaker 1:And that is the life flowing through the relationship that keeps you so close to the Lord. It keeps you alive. It keeps you vibrant. Okay, the number two step is to learn to trust God. You know, when we first had our spiritual encounter with God, oh, I tell you what, when we first got saved, we were trusting Him for everything.
Speaker 1:Oh, God, you're so good. And we were trusting for everything. It didn't matter how big the mountain looked, our feet weren't touching the ground anyway. We were so excited about every little thing that God was doing. We were so much in love, we knew that there was absolutely nothing too big for God.
Speaker 1:Now, sometimes if we're a little bit intimidated, maybe we're not coming on really strong with God at that time, but we know deep down the God of the universe loves me. And that keeps the spark in us. Now, if you remember, your faith at that time was very simple and was very childlike when we first come to the Lord. Lord, I just love you. Trust was just second nature because it's so easy to trust someone with whom you're intimately associated.
Speaker 1:It's easy to trust someone that you're taking some time to walk with him every day. Now, if you have a busy day and you say, Well, can't today but I'm going do it tomorrow. Don't let yourself do that. Make sure that every day you spend some time with God. It may not be a lot of time, but spend some time with God every day.
Speaker 1:That's going to keep that relationship vibrant and alive. And while I was writing this Bible study, I began to question, Lord, how did we move from that childlike trust that we first had? It was so good and so wonderful. Why would we leave something that was that wonderful? How did we move away from something this good?
Speaker 1:And the Lord began to show me that as time moved on and as circumstances and situations and trials started coming, which we have that in life, He showed me that the old habit of taking care of things ourselves by the arm of flesh, the way we've been accustomed to doing it all of our life, begins to creep back in little by little by little. And it does. It always does. That's why we need to watch for that. Those old self sufficient habits begin to crop back in without our even noticing it until we finally find ourselves back in charge of our life.
Speaker 1:You know, we were loving God. We were hearing Him and praying and getting His answers. And then all of a sudden, time goes by and we stop one day and we say, Woah! I'm in charge of my life again. I'm making all my decisions.
Speaker 1:And instead of taking the time now to quote the Word when a situation arises and determine to trust and rely on God, it just gets easy and it gets comfortable to take care of it ourselves. Oh, this is not big. I can handle this. Not that it worked, you know, when we do that. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1:Because we've had a lot of heartache and failure, But it just becomes quick and easy, an easy thing to do, and it's comfortable to do it because it's easier and it's quicker. As simple as that. That's why we do it. And it really wasn't out of rebellion. I don't think any of us pull away from God out of rebellion because we know what it's like to be with God.
Speaker 1:But it's out of a habit. Very subtly, we slip back into old habits. Then, as we begin to take care of more and more things by the arm of flesh, Oh, I've got so much to do today, and we get busy and we do it by the arm of flesh. We forget the sweetness of what it was like when we were trusting and relying on our Father for every little thing. And the more we relied on self, the more complicated life becomes.
Speaker 1:We find that out when we do it, but sometimes we don't stop to find it out. Sometimes we're so busy just living life. And the more complicated that life becomes, the less time we have mentally and emotionally to think about the Lord. So, it just becomes a vicious cycle. And we slip back little by little by little.
Speaker 1:It's the same thing that happens even in a marriage, especially there where there's two imperfect vessels. They both have their old habits and all these things they fall back on. But I've seen this happen over and over. The couple marries and they're so much in love. And the wife runs to her husband for everything to get his input.
Speaker 1:He's always there for her. And then, for various reasons, not because they quit loving each other, but for various reasons, they get busy. That's the key word. And it seems to be quicker and easier sometimes for the bride to fall back on some of her old habits, some of her old self dependence and some of those old making decisions on her own. She's always made decisions.
Speaker 1:It's easy to slip back into that. And she becomes less dependent on the husband. And most of the time, that's okay with the husband many times because that's just one less thing that he has to take care of and he's busy, too. And it's nothing that they've planned. It's nothing they've intended to have happen, but they move further and further apart and most of the time it's without even realizing it.
Speaker 1:But the Lord says, I was not the one who moved. That's what we need to realize. When we start pulling back because we're busy, God says, I'm not the one that moved. He said, I'm one husband who doesn't move. I've been there for you all along and I always will be.
Speaker 1:But it's so easy to forget that when they're in the midst of life. He's always saying, I'm in the same place where I've always been. Now, the word love walk and the word trust walk, they're synonymous. And God is calling us back into a trust walk. And that trust walk will begin to rekindle that spark.
Speaker 1:If we determine I want back where I'm trusting God again, you'll realize the spark will start growing again. Now, one of the very first scriptures that God gave me after I experienced this love walk was Colossians two:six. It was out of the Living Bible. That was the Bible I was using at that time. And it says, Just as you trusted Christ to save you, trust Him now for each day's problems and live in vital union with Him.
Speaker 1:And when I read that, it just came alive, you know. And He said, I want you to live in vital union with Me. Now, it's easy to trust Christ to save us because even by the arm of flesh, we know we can't do that. That's impossible. But in the same way, He wants us to come back to trusting Him for every little thing, every little problem that comes along.
Speaker 1:It doesn't have to be a big problem. It can be a small one, but God wants us to stop and say, Lord, I just need your help. I want to make the right decision here. And this second step now, rekindling our trust, will lead us directly back to our first love. The minute we start saying, Okay, Lord, I've slipped a little bit away, but I want to rekindle that trust.
Speaker 1:I want to trust you for everything. And all of a sudden, you'll start realizing that that first love, that sparkle is beginning to come back. Trust God now, today, in everything. Lord, I'm going to have a time when I'm not quite as busy and then I'm going to really trust You and walk with You. No.
Speaker 1:Today is the day. And the first step is quality time alone without allowing it to become just a ritual. And then, number two, we've got to stop self reliance and just start trusting God with everything in our being. And that's a choice. That's not something that just happens.
Speaker 1:It won't happen without making the choice to do it. Now, there's really only one way to break old habits of self reliance, and that is coming to a place where we're willing to say, Lord, I had rather not see my problems work at all than to see it work because I made it work by the arm of flesh. And we want our problems to work out. So it takes a little bit of effort to say, Lord, I'd rather not even see it work, that it not even work, if I'm going to do it by the arm of flesh. And then that will cause us then saying, Okay, Lord, I need Your help.
Speaker 1:And it can be a little frightening, but we have to get brutal with that spirit of self reliance. That's one of the big things that keeps us from our close walk with God. And it's so worth the effort because it's one of the main ways to keep that first love alive. And the best part about our trust walk now is that God will always be found trustworthy. You know, you may have even a husband or a wife, and hopefully they're going to always be trustworthy, but sometimes not.
Speaker 1:But with God, He is always trustworthy. You'll never get out on a limb from trusting in God's Word and find out that He's not there. That'll never happen. And that's just very exciting to be able to say that to yourself every once in while. Lord, I know it's easy for me to get out on a limb.
Speaker 1:But, Lord, no matter what, if I slip and get out on a limb on my own, I know You'll never leave me. And the moment I come back, You're right there. Jeremiah one twelve says He's watching over His Word to perform it. All these promises that He's made. He's watching over His Word to perform them every time when we're needing it.
Speaker 1:And, of course, it goes without saying that if we love and trust Him, then we're going to be obedient. That just goes without saying. Okay, the number three way back to rekindling our love walk. The Lord showed me that what put a strain on the love walk had me pull away in the first place were just worries and cares. You'll be honest with yourself.
Speaker 1:It's usually never some big, dark sin that you're into. I mean, that can happen, but that's usually not what it is. What pulls us away from that close love walk are the worries and cares of this world. We look around and we see that there's more to do than we have time to do in a day, and so we start getting uptight. Sometimes it seems that there's more bills than there's money to pay the bills, and so we start worrying about that.
Speaker 1:And as those pressures come in, we feel oppressed and we start feeling heavy laden. Now, I'm not minimizing the importance of doing spiritual warfare to take care of this harassment because we have to do our spiritual warfare. That just goes without saying. But there are legitimate things that do have to be handled in a day because even the legitimate things can bring pressure. So, what about just the daily things that are necessary that become worries and cares and tend to rob our love walk.
Speaker 1:Because they will. They'll rob your love walk. And God has an answer, and sometimes His answers seem so simple, but they were. The Lord reminded me that during those times, when my love walk was fresh and beautiful, when it was at an optimum, I was appreciative for every little thing that came along. You know, was just telling God all the time, Lord, thank you for this, or thank you for that.
Speaker 1:And He reminded me that I noticed every tiny little intervention of the Lord, and I would just rejoice and be so excited and acknowledged and thanking Him. I even kept a diary, and I could hardly wait to call people up and tell them what the Lord had been doing, you know. Okay, that was the main topic of our conversation. We'd call each other and tell each other what the Lord was doing. But as time went on and the pressures and the worries and the cares came in, and they began to mount little by little you don't notice it at first even though we were still appreciative for everything, we were not always taking the time to notice every little incident.
Speaker 1:You know, we were seeing the big things, but we weren't back there where we used to see every little thing that God was doing. And we weren't really rejoicing like we once had rejoiced. We'd slipped away from it just a tiny bit. We weren't taking the time to share all those blessings with everybody or get before God and just take the time to recall them one by one in Thanksgiving. Oh, God, I thank you for this and I thank you for that.
Speaker 1:You know, we were hitting the big spots. Now because of the pressures, we were in a rush and sort of got overhead. I remember where at one time I would just be, Oh God, I thank you Lord and I would start naming everything. But it comes to a time where sometimes just over our shoulder we're holding, Oh, thank you, Lord. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1:But we're doing it as we're on the run. We just allow ourselves to get too busy, too preoccupied and too distracted. And God's saying, come back to your first love. That's constantly what God says to us all through our lifetime. And if we listen and if we are obedient, then it works.
Speaker 1:But God's saying, come back to your first love. Come back to the days of simple appreciation, just where you just appreciate everything I do. He says, Begin to be grateful to me for all the big things and all the little things and begin to give me credit verbally for the good things that come your way and of course, all the daily miracles. We're usually very appreciative for the big things. God said, I want you to come back.
Speaker 1:I want you to be just as excited about the little things I do. Begin to practice, He said, a lifestyle of gratitude where you just start telling me how much you appreciate this and how much you appreciate that and this other thing that I've done. Just think about the time that I felt like the Lord reminded me of the importance of appreciation. I was standing in the den. I know this is gonna sound like a funny little story, but God really spoke to me in this.
Speaker 1:And I was looking out the patio window, and the Lord was speaking to me at the same time, not verbally, but as just things that you know in your spirit. And this is not going to sound all that significant, but I want you to hear the dynamics. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a little covey of quail in the backyard. And I'm not talking about a few. There were quite a few.
Speaker 1:And they were all walking across the yard. Now, if you've ever noticed how a covey of quail walk in a line, their little heads just kind of bob as they walk. You know, their head goes back and forth. And it's almost like they're pushing themselves forward with their head. You know, it's really cute.
Speaker 1:And I remember that as I saw that, I turned away quickly because I didn't want to divert my attention away from the Lord. I had intended to get there that day and really get close to the Lord. So I wouldn't let myself look and I turned away so I wouldn't divert my attention. And I didn't want to be distracted. And I subconsciously felt that I didn't have time to stop and enjoy the splendor of those precious little quail.
Speaker 1:So, I was trying to get close to God, so I said, I don't want anything to distract me. All of a sudden, God said, I give you blessings and I give you enjoyable things all the time. And He said, I want you to take time to enjoy them. Then tell me all about your appreciation. And he stopped me and he said, That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1:He said, What has to happen with me doesn't have to be some big, enormous thing. It doesn't have to be something that just absorbs you. He said, I want you to be close to Me and appreciate every little thing, even a little covey of quail that's walking across the backyard. And in that one little incident now, the Lord had me to stop and remember all the little things that used to thrill me and bless me, where I was excited and just wanted to take in everything that God was doing. See, there was a time that I would stop everything to enjoy even just one little thing that came along.
Speaker 1:I'd stop to enjoy every little quail that I saw, you know. And I remember the peace that I enjoyed then. The peace that I sometimes lose now because I'm busy with the worries and cares of the world. And that's what God said, I want you to watch for. I want you to watch for the worries and cares.
Speaker 1:He said, That is a huge assignment of the enemy. Years ago, right after I went through deliverance, I got hold of God's peace. And for the first time back then, I wasn't going to turn loose of it for anything. It matter how stressful the situation. That peace was the most precious and most wonderful thing that I possessed.
Speaker 1:And so often, I remember waking up in the morning and just lying there soaking in the peace. And my eyes would just fill up with water as I'd think, Lord, how good You are. I was so at peace. It was so wonderful. And it was during that time that no one could have made me believe that we would ever turn loose of something that precious.
Speaker 1:And there'll be times when you're so close to the Lord and you'll think, Oh, this is wonderful. I'll never turn loose of this. And you know you're going to turn loose of that newfound joy. Now, I can't sing very well. I used to sing.
Speaker 1:I love to sing. But I was always writing songs. And find a way because God's going to show you how to express your love to Him. It wasn't that I was gonna be this great singer. It was that I was expressing my love to God, and he he started giving me songs.
Speaker 1:So ask God for these things. Ask him to give you something that let you express your love to him. And so this he gave me when he said, I want you to come into a love walk. Lord, I desire a love walk with you. Lord, I desire a love walk with you.
Speaker 1:To see your face, to hear your voice, to feel your fond embrace. Lord, I desire a love walk with you. Lord, I desire to do what I see the father do because apart from you, I can do nothing. To walk with you, to talk with you, to feel your presence sweet around me. 'Tis all I need to seek for the rest will all be added to me.
Speaker 1:A love walk, a love walk. That's all I search and seek to find. I'll draw near to you. You'll stay close to me. Sweet Jesus, so divine.
Speaker 1:Lord, I desire a love walk with you. Lord, I desire a love walk with you. He gave me a beautiful tune. Wish I could give that to you. But, anyway but let God give you songs.
Speaker 1:Sing the songs to him. I kept a notebook full of songs, and it was so important. And God could have just given us a voice to talk. He could have done that where we could all talk. That's what our voice did.
Speaker 1:But it was important enough to him that he gave us a voice where we could also sing. He didn't say it had to be beautiful. It didn't have to be that the world would say, Oh, how beautiful. He said, I want you to sing. He said, When you sing to me, it is beautiful to me.
Speaker 1:So, your singing voice and express to God how you love Him and how much He means to you with song. You don't have to do it in front of somebody else. But find times when you do that. I was laying the bathroom tile. I was crying out to God for a relative.
Speaker 1:And I just started singing my request. And I started singing the promise that God was making me, and I was singing the response back to him. Well, after that, every time I prayed for that person, that song came back and it would build my faith. You'll find out when you sing something to God, then it builds faith in you. I don't know what it is about that, but it'll enhance your prayer.
Speaker 1:And that person, by the way, is serving God today. So, let that help you in your intercession. God doesn't care how we sound when we sing because it's beautiful to Him. You know, David, he may not have had a wonderful voice. We don't know for sure how good his voice was.
Speaker 1:But we do know he opened his mouth and he sang to God what was in his heart. And it was anointed because it came out of his spirit. Your songs will be anointed because they're coming up from your heart. It's like they come out of a joy of a new love relationship. And what that song will do, it'll bring hope.
Speaker 1:I want every one of you, when you're alone with the Lord, I want you to start singing to Him at times. Just sing how much you love Him. And God's saying, Come back to just simple, simple appreciation. He said, I to just want appreciate me. Little things like the time when I would just about be ready to leave town to drive 10 miles back out to my house, and all of a sudden, God would just remind me.
Speaker 1:I knew it wasn't coming from me. He'd just remind me of that one grocery item that I had to have. He'll remind you of things, and I would think, Oh, God, thank you. I didn't get home and have to turn around and come all the way back into town. He'll do little things like that for us.
Speaker 1:He reminded me to stop and appreciate again the time when he had this guy stop when Lou Ann and I had gone over to Stephenville for a seminar. And we were coming back. We hadn't looked at the gas gauge and we ran out of gas. And a man was right there. Had a can of gas and took care of it on the spot.
Speaker 1:You know, if we're not rejoicing in the Lord and enjoying the presence of the Lord every minute, then when those harassing things happen, like running out of gas, you know, we'll succumb to the pressure of being late and we'll get frustrated. The minute that frustration comes in, you know that you missed your opportunity to get with God. And so, notice the difference in the effect that it has on your attitude. Just notice different things that you'll say or think in your mind. What on earth is going to happen next?
Speaker 1:Or think about the times when you said, Lord, thank you for sending somebody to help me. It'll make a total difference in which way it goes. A fresh love walk says, Lord, thank you for what you've done. But a love walk that's begun to grow cold will say, Oh, Lord, what next? Notice yourself because you're going go one way or the other and it makes all the difference in the world.
Speaker 1:Rekindle that love walk. When we're tempted to say, Lord, what next? Instead of, Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you for this provision. Thank you for what you've done. Sometimes we fall for frustration and the anger at ourselves over our negligence instead of appreciating everything that God does.
Speaker 1:Practice voicing your appreciation for maybe that extra $5 that you find down in the bottom of your purse or down in your billfold. When you're ready to check out at the grocery store or the gas station, you didn't have quite enough money, you dig deeper and God has it right there. I think He plants it there for us when we're trusting Him. I really do. There was a time when we saw that as a marvelous blessing.
Speaker 1:But as time goes by, sometimes it's gotten easier, many times, to just get uptight over the fact, Oh, no, I'm out of money. I don't know what to do. You know, rather than looking to God and saying, God, you're my Lord, you're my God, you're my Father. I need some help right now. And every time he comes through.
Speaker 1:It's amazing. And it'll be a different way every time, but it's just because we're in a love walk with the Lord. You know, sometimes we get so worried about the high cost, you know, that we forget to appreciate the fact that God's been providing all along, in spite of the fact that things have gotten higher. He's going be our Jehovah Jireh, and He wants us to appreciate that and acknowledge Him. Elijah would have been in big trouble during that three year famine if he had failed to see God as his Jehovah Jireh or if he had complained about what he didn't have instead of being very appreciative for that widow who had a little bit of meal and a little bit of oil and it kept multiplying.
Speaker 1:You'll be surprised how many times God will multiply something if we're just appreciative, if we just tell Him how much we thank Him. God wants us to look at what He's done for us. Jack was always saying, and I finally memorized it myself, that we need to look back at every crisis through which we've come and realize God brought us through it or we wouldn't be here right now. He said, Think of all the things that we face that look pretty impossible. And when we look back, we realize brought us through it.
Speaker 1:He took care of it. That's why we're where we are right now. We look sometimes at a new crisis and we tend to panic. But God is wanting us to look back and appreciate the fact that He has never left us. He's never left us.
Speaker 1:I can remember years ago, when we were coming home from Tulsa, we stopped in front of this big hotel in Dallas. We were picking up Mama Oga from the prison ministry in Manila, Philippines, and she was coming home with us to speak. And for no apparent reason, my tire blew out right there in front of the door of this big, expensive hotel. And remember being so embarrassed. And it was in front of all these people who were in their Mercedes and their Cadillacs, you know, and here I was.
Speaker 1:And I can remember that the Lord really got my attention when He asked me in my spirit, How do you see this incident right now compared to how you would have seen it when your love walk with me was all fresh and new and exciting? He said, when your love walk was fresh and new and exciting, he said, you would have been so joyful that your tire blew out right here in this parking spot and you weren't going down the Highway 65 miles an hour, you know. And I thought, yeah, we fail to see these things because we get frustrated. Do you follow what God was getting to? When our love walk with God is fresh and alive, we see miracles in everything that happens because those miracles are there, but they won't do us one bit of good if we're not in an attitude to recognize the miracle.
Speaker 1:Now, whether we grumble or see the blessing, no matter how subtle it might be, is going to tell us now volumes about where we are in our love walk. That'll tell you where you are. When our love walk is fresh and alive, everything around us looks hopeful and it looks exciting. When our plans seem to fall apart, we need to ask ourselves, Do I panic or do I just stop and thank God for the fact that He's there and He's going to help me no matter what it is? He's gonna take me through it.
Speaker 1:God is always faithful. Sometimes we don't see it because we get all frustrated, and He's over here waiting to be faithful, and we're frustrated, and we don't ever see it. God is always faithful. A well cared for love walk keeps us joyful all the time. He says, Get your love walk right with me.
Speaker 1:Now, we're not so callous that we never appreciate anything, but God wants to call us back to a fresh love walk where we're appreciative for every single little thing that He does because He's doing sweet things every day, every moment. God says that's one of keys now for returning to our first love. We just need to learn how to use every pressure, every worry, every care and see that as a barometer to cause us to stop and find something in the midst of that now for which we can be appreciative. And there are things in it. And the moment that we get appreciative, then something else good happens and just opens the door.
Speaker 1:Not only will it release the pressure, but it will also keep that spark of love and gratitude alive where it starts bubbling up again. We recently had a houseguest from New Jersey, and God really used her in this area, and it was a wonderful reminder. She began to tell me how peaceful my home felt to her. And that was something I'd kind of taken for granted. And then she went on about the beautiful view out across the countryside.
Speaker 1:This is the most beautiful view. I could just stand here and look at it all day long. And I thought, I've kind of taken that for granted. And then she went back out and petted all the animals and just was loving every minute of it. And she came back in telling me, Oh, I've had so much fun with your animals today.
Speaker 1:And I thought, sometimes I gripe about them. And here she was really bragging on them. She was excited about everything that I had been taking for granted. And it was so good for me to see her excitement and hear her gratitude. It rekindled an appreciation down on the inside of me for some of the things that I had overlooked.
Speaker 1:God is calling us back to that childlike appreciation. Keep that childlike appreciation alive because it's so important to keep the spark in our relationship with God. In Levitations three twenty two-twenty three, His love and His kindness never fails. They are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness.
Speaker 1:God's faithfulness, His faithful interventions in our life, they're new every morning. Whatever it is we're needing, God's gonna have it there if we expect it and if we're excited and we're thanking Him. With any new problem, any new pressure, God's faithfulness is there. And it's new, and it's able to take care of every single new situation. God doesn't intervene every third or fifth time, you know.
Speaker 1:No, His faithfulness is new every morning to meet every problem we have. But sometimes we don't get it because we're not expecting it. We're just not expecting it. David appreciated God. Through his songs, you could see that he had experienced God's faithfulness, and he evidently never turned loose of it.
Speaker 1:It was new every morning. I love Psalm 23, if you'll just think about it. Psalm 23 is one long appreciation to God. That's what it is from beginning to end. David was grateful for the green grass.
Speaker 1:He was grateful for the still waters. He was grateful for the protection. He was grateful for his sheep. He said all that in that psalm. He was even appreciating the fact that when he passed through the valley of the shadow of death, that he didn't have to be afraid because God was gonna be right there with him.
Speaker 1:That whole song is one long appreciation. Now, I don't care whether your needs are being met through a job or maybe being met through a garage sale or maybe through another person. Whatever. It's still coming from God. He's our Jehovah Jireh.
Speaker 1:And He's wanting us to appreciate and verbally speak it back to Him, say it back to Him, no matter what channel He used to bring it to you. You can turn every frustration into joy with appreciation. So, don't let your children or your mate or anyone else even go a day without voicing something you appreciate about them. That's one of the best things that a parent can do. I'm not saying that you won't discipline your children when they're out of line, but one of the best things you can do for them is to speak something you appreciate about them every day.
Speaker 1:I was reminded of the little boy who was told to make a list of all the things that he appreciated, and he put at the top of the list his eyeglasses. This is a true story. And the teacher thought, Well, that's a little bit strange. Most kids, they really resent having to wear glasses. But she asked him, Well, what is it that you appreciate about your eyeglasses?
Speaker 1:He said, I appreciate my glasses because they keep the boys from hitting me and they keep the girls from kissing me. I loved that story, you know. So, we can find something in every situation for which to be appreciative. I have such a desire not only to put this across not just to you but to myself because every time I say it, it reminds me. And it brings me to a place where I realize there's nothing that can get us in the right place with God and the right place to receive His blessing any more than just telling Him how much we love Him, telling Him every day how much we appreciate Him, Tell Him every day how much we thank Him for all He's doing for us.
Speaker 1:There's no greater joy in a marriage than to keep the spark of love alive. But even that doesn't compare now to the joy of keeping the spark of love alive in our love walk with the Lord. And it's from this love now that we as Christians are going to receive the power to become an overcomer every single day. It takes something so simple to give us the power to be an overcomer. And this appreciation, it'll open the doors, I promise.
Speaker 1:So, in closing, if the spark is gone, life's a little, you know, gone out of your love walk, whether it be with your mate or whether it be with the Lord, you can put the life back. Number one, spending time with God every day without allowing it to become a ritual. And you can keep that ritual out by realizing that God wants to have fellowship with you. I wrote that out because nothing makes me more excited and fulfills my life better than realizing it's not that I'm wanting to have fellowship with Him. God wants to have fellowship with me.
Speaker 1:And the minute I hear that, I mean, it changes everything in my attitude. And then number two, choose to trust Him in every situation and cut off all self reliance because, boy, it's easy to slip into that doing for ourself, you know. I've got to get this done. And then number three, eliminate the worries and cares by just being constantly grateful and appreciative. If I keep my gratitude intact, then the job can be pretty big and it can be something that I was dreading.
Speaker 1:But if I keep my appreciation intact, it's like it makes the job so easy. If I start feeling complacent and the joy is gone, I have to do these three things. You can do a three point checklist and you'll always find the answer in these three point checklist, the three I gave you. And I promise you, they sound simple, but you do them and it'll work every single time. Father, I'm so appreciative, Father, that you make life so easy for us.
Speaker 1:We make it hard because we get into worries and cares and this and that and something else. But, father, if we'll just stop every day and spend our time with you, telling you how much we love you, receiving your love back, if we'll stop every time and let you show us something good in every situation that we're in, Lord, it it it can change our life. It can make life so good. You want our life to be good because you're the god of the universe, and we're your children, and you want to do for us. So, father, I just thank you for that.
Speaker 1:We just say, Lord, we love you. We praise you. We want you to be proud and pleased with us. And there's nothing more exciting. There's nothing more wonderful than to realize the God of the universe wants to be with me.