Abundant Life and Loving God: Let God Capture Your Heart

By Greg Wander

Abundant Life & Loving God tells how one mans journey of discovery led him to find abundant life in Jesus Christ and a central place in his life for following the most important commandment to love God. Greg Wander tells how he came to love God as passionately as he loves the members of his family. Energized by this change in his lifes priorities, he looks back over his personal history in the church and reveals how loving God was rarely discussed. By telling this story he hopes to help others find renewed love for God.

In adopting an approachable tone, Abundant Life and Loving God turns its attention to topics like enjoying real relationships with God, loving God, spending time seeking God, finding transformation in God, and reviewing recommendations for spiritual leaders to encourage others in their searches for a loving God. A concluding list of recommended readings, grouped by topic, provides guidance for ones spiritual search.

If you have come to the point in your life where you recognize gaps and holes in your spiritual life, then this text offers support. With its embraceable narrative, it will provide you with scripturally grounded guidance for discovering the blessings that come with showing your love for God and receiving His grace for enjoying an abundant life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781491761939

Greg Wander

Greg Wander—filled with joy from years of seeking God—desires to share this joy, drawing people’s attention to the primary commandment: love God. He has earned a graduate certificate in biblical studies from Moody Bible Institute. He and Melissa, his wife, have three children and live in Michigan.

Book preview

Abundant Life

&

Loving God

LET GOD CAPTURE YOUR HEART

GREG WANDER

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Abundant Life & Loving God

LET GOD CAPTURE YOUR HEART

Copyright © 2015 Greg Wander.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6192-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-6193-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015905280

iUniverse rev. date: 5/11/2015

Contents

Acknowledgments And Thanks

Introduction

Chapter 1 A Real Relationship With God

Chapter 2 Loving God

Chapter 3 Spend Time Seeking God

Chapter 4 God Transforms Us

Chapter 5 The Abundant Life And Loving God

Chapter 6 Is Loving God The Most Important Thing In Your Life?

Chapter 7 Recommendations To Parents, Church Leaders, And Pastors

Conclusion

Recommended Reading

Great Ministries To Learn About, Get Involved In, And Financially Support

Powerful Quotes

Acknowledgments and Thanks

I often describe myself as one of the most joy-filled people on the planet, and I am so incredibly grateful for my life’s journey, which God used to open my eyes to the abundant life that He had already given me and for the additional blessings that He had planned for me.

I am also grateful to Ransomed Heart Ministries, K-LOVE, Moody Bible Institute, and Pastor Jim Combs (Faith Church in Waterford, Michigan), who all provided pieces of the puzzle that helped me better understand my life’s journey and Christianity and develop the concepts in this book.

Of course, I am very thankful for my incredible family: parents, brother, wife, children, and in-laws! They are all the most wonderful blessings that a man could ask for. This book would not exist without my incredibly patient and loving wife, Melissa. I love you!

Introduction

This book is motivated by a desire to share God’s abundant life and joy and to encourage everyone to passionately seek God. I spent many years seeking God and attending seminary, and I desperately want to share what I have learned.

After discovering that I love Jesus exactly as I love any of my family members, I realized that loving God is, after all, the most important commandment, but I had been ignoring it. This book is about the key events in my life that taught me to love God and how every Christian can do the same thing.

The disappointing fact is that I learned to love God unintentionally! Churches had never stressed that loving God is supposed to be the most important aspect of Christianity. I can’t recall hearing a single sermon about loving God. Nobody told me to view life as a journey, where the most important goal is to learn to love Him.

This book uses stories to provide an understanding of Christianity that is consistent with Jesus’s priorities and perspective. You will begin to see God as a heavenly Father who wants to relate to you and give you abundant life, and you will learn how He delivers that abundant life to you.

The Continuous Journey of Transformation, Life, and Love is a powerful diagram that will help Christians understand how the important concepts of seeking God, transformation into a new creation, abundant life, and loving God are related to each other.

Finally, the book concludes with recommendations for parents and churches to ensure that loving God is the most important thing in our lives, to communicate that priority clearly to our children and new Christians, and to understand how all of our Christian activities and lessons relate to the most important commandment—to love God.

I desperately pray that God will use this book to help many of His children learn to truly love Him and encourage more churches to see encouraging people to passionately seek God as their most important role, with the goal of truly loving Him. Once Christians experience Christ’s abundant life, they will genuinely love Him, serve Him, and passionately encourage others to develop a real relationship with Him.

One

A REAL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

Normally, I fall asleep instantly. On this night, however, it was 2:00 a.m., and I still couldn’t sleep. I was deeply troubled. Earlier in the day, I’d read a news story about an art display that showed Jesus engaged in a terribly sinful act. I felt sick to my stomach. How could somebody do that? What could I do to end this public humiliation of Jesus? Thankfully, several churches near the museum were protesting this display, so I got up from bed and called several of them, leaving messages of support on their answering machines, even though I was over one thousand miles away.

I discovered that the city council was going to discuss this art display the next day, so I wrote e-mails to the city council members and prepared to call them. When I spoke to one of them later that morning, her tone was a little rude. At the end of the conversation, however, she made a statement for which I was very thankful, because it taught me many lessons. She said, This is a local issue.

Wow! It was like somebody had splashed cold water in my face. She had told me in so many words that this issue was none of my business. Seriously? Jesus was being insulted, and it was none of my business? He gave me eternal life and an abundant life right now. He gave me an amazing mother and father