FOR HE FIRST LOVED US!

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TODAYS MESSAGE TO SHARE:

FOR HE FIRST LOVED US!


Dear friends and family:


I received the following message from Graham Cookes ministry two days ago and am finally getting around to posting it here for your edification.

Graham Cooke is a speaker and author from Vacaville, California where he is part of the leadership team at The Mission, which was once known as Vacaville Christian Life Centre.

He has been involved in ministry since 1974 and is a itinerate speaker and teacher, involving intimacy, warfare and leadership development. May you be encouraged and blessed by this message on love. ~ L.D. Oxford - victorious1_2005@earthlink.net


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FOR HE FIRST LOVED US!

~By Graham Cooke

www.GrahamCooke.com


Every February, the western world's attention turns to a singular theme:Love. Millions of people will celebrate St. Valentine's Day on February 14, and honor their loved ones with gifts, flowers and chocolates. Yet it is the Lord who is the great love of our life, and the basis of every loving relationship we have.

If we can just grasp how the Holy Spirit promotes the love of Almighty God in our lives, we will never be anxious or fearful again. God can be wonderfully trusted with everything: this is the foundation for a loving friendship. He is our keeper, and He takes that role very seriously.

Once we understand that God is our keeper, we can begin to keep someone else. As He is, so we are. We love because He first loved us. We must learn the dimensions of how God keeps us, and what He wants to be for us.

God has places He wants to take us; He has a role in the Kingdom that only we can fill. God wants to commit each of us to outrageous adventures that, without Him, would scare the life out of us. With Him, it’s fun!

Christians are not ordinary people: we are extraordinary men and women who do extraordinary things. With God as our keeper, we can be strong.

When we don’t understand God’s keeping power, we stay in our little boats, too terrified to walk on water. Without God, we hide and wait for the battle around us to end.

God longs for us to be wholehearted in our love for Him, and in our love for one another. He does not want us to sit back and withhold ourselves. He is delighted when we enter relationships that honour and worship Him.

When we live in unity, God can bring us into a deeper existence in the realm of the Spirit.

It is my prayer that Christians would become the family, the company of friends, which God desires us to be. If our friendships are continually strengthened and stand the test of time, we will become an enigma in the earth.

People will look at us and marvel. “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us,” says 1 John 3:16. “And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” Our love for one another makes God’s heart glad.

We must not back down, break down, or run away, but instead run together and break through into everything He has called us to be.

This February, love God and love one another with all your heart.

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FOR BOOKS AND OTHER MATERIALS, GO TO: www.GrahamCooke.com

GOD'S KEEPING POWER

In God's Keeping Power, Graham Cooke examines the overwhelmingly loyal friendship and companionship of God. Using examples found throughout Scripture, Graham shares his experiences of a God who never turns away from those He calls 'friend.'

How should that revelation of God's keeping power affect our own relationships with others? What if the church lived in the God's keeping power, remaining completely loyal, loving and open to one another?

This book features teaching, meditations, and exercises and is prefect for both individual and group study.

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QUESTION AND ANSWER

Every month, Graham receives dozens of questions from people working through significant spiritual issues. It is impossible for him to answer every question, but in this space, Graham will address some of those common queries.

QUESTION: Why does it feel like I am constantly in a spiritual storm?

GRAHAM'S REPLY: Everything that God is doing in our lives is intentionally relational. To walk with Him, therefore, we must also be intentionally relational—with Him and with others.

As I have said many times before: God, in His wisdom, allows what He could easily prevent by His power. In everything, He is constant and in charge:

Sometimes He leads us into good situations, and other times, He leads us into difficult things. But God’s commitment to us never wavers. Every situation in life is about God wanting to give Himself to us.

Right now, our lives could be good, bad, or ugly, but we can be joyful knowing that God has designed our current circumstances to enable us to see a part of Him that we couldn’t see at any other time.

We should never ask God, “Why?” The why question will never be answered on earth, because it’s the wrong question. The question we must ask is, “What is this for?”

We must see what Jesus wants to be for us in every situation. God always wants to be true to His name, to be the “I AM.” Whatever is happening in your life right now, I AM is with you.

Together with Jesus, we can walk in the high places of the Spirit, but only if we come to the simple understanding of who I AM truly is.