The Power of Love

In tonight’s post we have the personal testimonies of two young women who were searching for love in all the wrong places.  This is so commonplace today, because most of us come into this world looking for completeness and fulfillment.  What we are searching for is true love.  But those of us who have surrendered our lives to Jesus Christ have truly found out what real love is all about.  Though we may think that real love can be found in another human being, it is not until we find a true relationship with our Creator and His Son, Our Lord and Savior that we find the love that we are all searching for. 1 John 4:16 KJV says:

God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

Let us view the stories of two young women who have found the love that their hungering hearts had been seeking.

The Power of Love

By Y C

I thank God that He sent a witness my way who told me I could be saved, made free from sin, and that I could gain everlasting life. Jesus Christ showed me how much He loved me by dying on the cross for my sins. This gave me hope.

Before I came into the knowledge of the truth about how to be saved, I thought I was okay and all I had to do was go to church. I did not know I was living in sin which was not pleasing to God. There is a lot that I did not know. For example, I did not know that I had to be saved, live holy and have the Holy Ghost who could keep me saved and give me the power to leave sin alone.

God gave me a promise in his Word that He would forgive me of all my sins if I repented. I thought drinking would take the pain away. He delivered me from fornication, lying, cheating, drug addiction, smoking cigarettes, and a suicidal spirit.

In the past, I lied and told people everything was okay with me when I was not okay. I had to keep lying to cover up the truth. (One day those lies are going to catch up to you, but Jesus can deliver you from lying just like he did me.) I don’t have to lie about anything anymore. After I gave my life to God, He taught me to always tell the truth.

In trying to find love, I thought a particular man would love me, but he never did. He was only there to get what he needed and nothing else. This person kidnapped me and put me in a U-Haul truck at gunpoint. He put a gun to my head and made me take crack cocaine. I told him, “No,” but he threatened to kill me, so I did it. To get away from him, I lied and said I did not feel well, and that my head was hurting. I asked his mom for some pain medicine and I took more than ten pills, thinking that killing myself would allow me to escape this man. I did not want to wake up from the medication that I took, but I did. I found myself going back to crack cocaine.  I did not understand why, and I would ask myself, “How did I get back here?”  But it became a habit.  This habit had me strung out for eight long years. It started a downward spiral in my life. I ended up in a mental institution due to battles in my mind which had me thinking that I had different personalities. I thank God that He delivered me and set me free. Now I know who I am, and I know who loves me.  That person is my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.   I found real and true love in Jesus Christ. (You can find love in Jesus Christ as well.)

When I found Jesus, He woke me up. Jesus loved me so much that He gave me another chance at life. I praise and magnify the name of the Lord who is the head of my life. I will forever praise Him because He loves me; He is worthy to be praised.

Never give up because Jesus won’t give up on you. If you feel there is no way out of what you are in, know that there is a man who will deliver you and set you free.  His name is Jesus. Matthew 1:21 says:

 And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. God will save you from your sins not in them.

I have found Jesus to be my peace, love, my joy, my happiness, and my hope. He is my promise keeper, both powerful and faithful.  He is my counselor, my doctor in the sick room, my lawyer in the courtroom. He is my refuge and my strength when I’m in distress.  He is my lily in the valley and my bright and morning star. He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning, and the end.  He is my bread when I’m hungry and my water when I’m thirsty. He is a miracle worker, a comforter, and a keeper.  Jesus is my everything.  And, if he is all those things for me, he can be the same to you.  He did it for me and He can do it for you.

Our next testimony is that of a young lady who asks the question, “What’s love got to do with it?”  You will find her answer to that age-old question in her story.  She found that it has everything to do with it when you find the true love of your life, your Heavenly Father.

 

What’s Love Got to Do with It?

By Y H

1 John 2:15:  Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

And I can say that before I was saved, I loved the world but didn’t love God. But how can you love someone whom you do not know?

There was a time in my life when I thought I knew what real love was. I thought the things I loved were real love, such as going to the clubs on Thursday-Sunday and being in the streets, because I thought the streets loved me.  I loved everything about the streets, but low and behold I found out that the streets don’t love anybody.  I even thought that being in abusive relationships was real love.  How I was deceived and blinded by these things that I loved and that I thought loved me.  The real problem was that I didn’t know the love of God.

Someone asked a question, “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” If I knew then, what I know now, I would have answered that love has everything to do with it. I know now that love is God sacrificing his only begotten Son for a sinner like me.  Love is Jesus Christ taking thirty-nine stripes on his back for me.  It is my Lord and Savior shedding his blood for me when I didn’t deserve it.  Love is the fact that because of Jesus Christ I’m free from sin.  I am no longer bound by the things I use to do, because of love. I’m set free and baptized and filled with the Holy Ghost because of the love of God. I now have peace, joy and happiness because of God’s love.   God’s love protected me and kept me while I was out in the world, and because of Him my soul is not in a burning hell. I thank God for his loving kindness and his mercy which he has shown towards me.

I truly understand John 3:16 which states “For God so love the world (I know He does because I was part of the world) that He gave his only begotten Son so that whosoever, (I’m that whosoever) believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”

But what I do know is that God loves me so much, that even if I was the only person in this world,  God would still have sent His Son Jesus Christ to lay down his life for me.  I will close my testimony with this scripture from Revelation 1:5:

⁵ And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

Now to me that’s the power of love. Amen.

Tonight’s guest speakers have shared with us what they have learned about true love.  We invite you to reach out to God for salvation so that you too may experience the power of love.  As YH pointed out, the true love story is found in John 3: 16.  Won’t you receive Him today?