Tipos de Tapas

The Lord gave me a three-fold prayer earlier this year that I have used in my personal time with Him, and I have found it a great way to commence my intimacy with Him in the morning. It’s very simple, but I think you’ll enjoy incorporating this three-fold prayer into your personal devotional life:

Prayer #1: “Lord, I believe and receive Your love for me.” The Lord says to you, “‘Yes, I have loved you with an

everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you’” (Jeremiah 31:3).

So respond to Him just now and say, “Lord, I believe that You love me. And now I receive Your love.” We are not capable of loving Him until we have first received His love for us.

John wrote, “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us” (1 John 4:16). Many believers have yet to fully apprehend this verse. They still struggle with the thought that God could love them. “Love me?” they ask. “How could God love a mess like me?”

Dearly beloved of God, this must be settled once for all in your spirit. You must realize that God loves you personally and

passionately, not because of who you are but because of who He is. God’s love for you is not based upon who you are or what you’ve done but upon who He is and what He’s done (in Calvary). His heart is so great that He reaches out to all mankind with the true heart of a Father.

Hear the Father’s heart in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” The word

“everlasting” denotes both quantity and quality. God’s life is everlasting in quantity: God’s life is so full and replete that it will last for eternity. And God’s life is everlasting in quality: God’s life is so dynamically vibrant that nothing can kill it, not even eternity itself. God says, “I’m going to pour a quality of life into you that is unlike any kind of life you’ve ever known. This life is so incredibly dynamic and abundant that I call it everlasting life.” It is a life that emanates from the eternal lifesource of God Himself.

God uses the same adjective to describe His love for us. He says He loves us “with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3) Again, the word “everlasting” denotes both quantity and quality. God’s

love is everlasting in quantity -- that is, He is so full of love for us that the storehouse of His love will never run dry. For all eternity, the flame of His love will never flicker and die because it is fed from an eternal source. But even more significantly, God’s love is

everlasting in quality -- that is, the fire of His love for us is so rich and full and deep that nothing can snuff it out. One source defines the New Testament word for love -- “agape” -- as “unconquerable benevolence and undefeatable goodwill.” This love of God is described as “everlasting,” not simply because it will last for ever and ever, but because of the kind of love it is. It is a love that blazes with such fiery intensity that it cannot be extinguished by anything -- not even by eternity. Long after eternity has quenched the fire of our sun, God’s love will continue to burn with the same passion He displayed for you during His crucifixion.

Stop just now and say it again, “Lord, I receive Your incredible love for me.”

Prayer #2: “Lord, I love You.”

Make this the second statement in your personal prayer time. It’s good to tell Him you love Him.

Find ways to amplify upon that. Search your heart for words to express your innermost feelings and thoughts. Learn to become increasingly expressive in your passions for Him. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you because it takes God to love God.

Fear and love move along the same channel in our hearts. There is a river that flows from our hearts to God, and Jesus said in John 7:38 that this river of love is energized by the Holy Spirit. But Satan wants to hinder the flow by causing us to fear. Fear is the “backwash” that runs countercurrent to God’s love, and it seeks to impede, repress, and immobilize our love for God. 1 John 4:18 assures us, however, that “perfect love casts out fear.”

The Lord wants us to be flooded with such a rushing flow of the Holy Spirit that fear is literally flushed from our lives on the current of His love.

“Lord, I want to be perfected in this love. I really do love You!”

David prayed, “O God, my heart is steadfast” (Ps. 108:1). David was saying, “My heart isn’t wavering, O God. I’m not up and down, hot and cold. Rather, I’m constant in my fervency for You.” God’s love is said to be steadfast (Lamentations 3), and now David says he has the same kind of love for God. In one word, this love is called “constancy.”

David is saying, “The fervency of my love for You is constant. I continually press into Your face with unabated passion. I have the same kind of love for You that You have for me.”

Take time every day to tell Him you love Him. And tell Him your fervency for Him burns as brightly today as it ever has. Prayer #3: “Lord, how can I love my neighbor today?”

Jesus said, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

Henri Nouwen has said, “It’s an incredible mystery of God’s love that the more you know how deeply you are loved, the more you will see how deeply your sisters and your brothers in the human family are loved.”

When I fully come to love God perfectly and to share His heart, I will find myself effortlessly loving those whom He loves.

There is only one thing to live for, and that is the affirmation of Jesus. How does one receive the King’s nod? One of the greatest secrets of touching His heart is to touch the people He loves so passionately.

Here’s some simple “kingdom math”: ministry - love = burnout

ministry + love = fruitfulness

To explain, if my service to others is not motivated by love for Christ, I am facing inevitable burnout. But if my ministry is the expression of my passionate love for Jesus, I will participate in genuine kingdom fruitfulness.

“Lord, may my love for others become the natural extension of my love for You. Teach me to love in such a way that I am carried along upon the impetus of Your incredible love for the world.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight