Sunday, 26 January 2014

Follow Your Heart by Anthem Lights


Some say follow your own heart and it will never lead you astray.

Some say chase your own dreams, that's all that matters anyway.

Well I've been there, done that, tried that, lived that way like it was all for me...

and I came back, found out truth is, turns out to get me where I'm meant to be...


I've gotta follow Your heart if anything is gonna count in this life.

I've gotta follow Your heart if I'm ever gonna make a mark on eternity.

So let Heaven's heartbeat always move me,

let my only prayer be to follow Your heart.

Help me follow Your heart.


I don't need a second opinion, You just say the word, I'll go.

And I don't need any convincing to walk along the narrow road.

'Cause I'm all in, sold out, can't turn back now, these are more than empty words...

for the things that I want I trust You got, I'll just keep the first thing first...


I've gotta follow Your heart if anything is gonna count in this life.

I've gotta follow Your heart if I'm ever gonna make a mark on eternity.

So let Heaven's heartbeat always move me,

let my only prayer be to follow Your heart.

Help me follow Your heart.


I'll count it all as joy to give this life away.

There's not a cost too high

or price that I won't pay

to follow Your heart,

follow Your heart,

gotta follow Your heart,

help me follow Your heart.


I've gotta follow Your heart if anything is gonna count in this life.

I've gotta follow Your heart if I'm ever gonna make a mark on eternity.

So let Heaven's heartbeat always move me,

let my only prayer be Your heart.

Help me follow Your heart.

Help me follow Your heart.

Help me follow Your heart.

Help me follow Your heart.

Follow Your heart.



Saturday, 11 January 2014

What is Love?

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. If I am called to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and then love my neighbour as myself, what does that look like?

My thoughts immediately turn to 1 Corinthians 13 which contributes a lot to understanding what love is.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Love is certainly a powerful thing, especially when defined in this passage. It is something that we need in order to live a life that has meaning. But where does love come from? What is it's origin?

I recently read an article that explained some of this very well. In fact I will quote from it:

"God is love, and love is from God. Therefore, loving others is doing whatever it takes for them to have as much of God as they can."

A recent example from my own life comes to mind. A guy that I know claimed to "love" me but he didn't have a relationship with Christ. Impossible right? Where was this guy getting his "love" from? I still do not know the answer to that but I know that the world that we live in often defines "love" as a feeling. It's that feeling you get when you see a particular person, you think about them all the time, and you would do anything for them. Infatuation is a better word to define this kind of "love" and it will fade because it is not true love. The fact is that true love cannot flourish apart from God.

To quote more from the article I mentioned earlier:

"Anything that looks like love that we do for others - being patient, kind, not boastful or irritable or resentful, giving away our possessions, even martyrdom (1 Corinthians 13:4-5, 3) - that isn't done for God's glory and with a desire that others may taste and see that God is good (Psalm 34:8) is not true, vibrant love. Godless love is a hollow shell, a love that has lost its soul, a flower cut from its root. Godless love is sin (Romans 14:23)."  

- Taken from http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/love-is-not-a-verb

This is a great reminder for me to keep my head on straight when someone claims to love me or when I claim to love someone else. Only God can give me the ability to express true love. As I live my life claiming to be a Christian, a particular song comes to mind...

"And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they'll know we are Christians by our love."