Matthew 22:37 says:  ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’  It then goes on to say that we are to love one another as we love ourselves.  I know what I am supposed to do and I have moments where I really get it right.  I also have moments where I really get it wrong.  I could continue to play the game that most everyone else in our world loves to play and pretend, but what good would that do me and where would that get me in my spiritual journey?

Lord, I want to love You, the way You deserve to be loved, the way You want to be loved.  When I stop and think about everything you’ve done for me, for us, I just can’t help but to be amazed at Your goodness, grace, forgiveness and restoration.  We are so undeserving.  On our best day, we could not even come half-way close to earning anything good from You.  Yet, out of the great love and amazing grace that You have for us, comes this incredible opportunity to love You back.

I don’t want to love You back with just any love.  I want to love you back with all of my heart.  Please help me to stop guarding and holding back parts of my heart.  You have more than proven that I can trust you.  I want to love you with all of my soul.  The reality that You have saved and protect my soul, does not escape me.  Help the soul that You have saved, protected and loved to love You back.  I want to love you with all of my mind and this seems to be the place of greatest challenge, because my mind can become divided and segmented before I even realize what is going on.  Help me Lord, to let You control my thoughts and organize my mind.

I see so many play the game and then realize that I am often one of the so many.  Lord, I don’t want to be.  Please help me to make my heart the pure home for You that it needs to be.  Help my soul to know Who it belongs to, has been saved by and show it by impacting all the areas of my life and living.  And help me to fight and win the battle of the mind by not thinking as the world would have me to think, but by thinking the thoughts of my Most High God.

Lord, I love You, and I know I can love You more and better, please help me.  Lord, I love others, but I know I can love others more and better, please help me to make progress in this area of my life, not just so that I might progress, but so that I might really love You…  G3!

I shot a video this morning and as I was walking into the camera view I stirred up a rabbit!  Watch the bottom left corner at very beginning of the video, but watch fast because the rabbit is moving!  Also hope you are encouraged by the message and are able to grab you some solitude soon!  

None of us would ever admit to thinking that we are God, but a lot of us like to put ourselves in the position to play God!  The problem with this is – in order for us to get in the position to play God, we have to remove Him from the throne of our lives and put self in that place.  The really big problem with this, is that it can happen and we almost not even realize it!

God is the only One that deserves to be on the throne!  When we take Him off of the throne, it is always with the purpose of replacing Him and the usual replacement is self!  When we put self on the throne, our worship has moved off of the Creator and onto the creation and we know that this is nothing but trouble!

I have noticed and I hate to admit it, but this is almost a daily battle for me!  Just when I think that I have this battle won, something comes along to prove to me that I am not even close!  While I hate to admit it, I am glad that I can admit it, because admitting it – is the first step to heading life in the right direction!

Admission is a good place to start, but it is only the beginning!  May God help me with this journey!  I guess the best way to start is to say:  “Hi, I’m Michael Joe and I’m not God!”