TAKE ME DEEPER IN LOVE, LORD!

THE BUD FAMILY AFRICA

MONTHLY PRAYER AND FASTING BULLETIN FOR SEPTEMBER, 2025

TOPIC: TAKE ME DEEPER IN LOVE, LORD!

SCRIPTURE READING: EZEKIEL 47: 1-12

BIBLE READING: JAMES 5

 

Today is another day to wait on the Lord. We won’t faint, we won’t be weary. We will wait on the Lord and our strengths shall be renewed. We will rebuild our altars, we will upgrade it. Our altars shall be cleaned out of all debris and ashes and it shall be furnished with new fire. New fire burns on our altars, one that God Himself ignites and it consumes in us, everything that has no part in God. He consecrates us and makes us purified for heavenly use and His divine purposes in Jesus’ mighty name!!! Can you make a resounding Amen?

 

Let’s start today with this prayer point:

In the name of Jesus, I break free from everything – sin, self, and Satan induced bondages, that keep delimiting my growth in Christ Jesus.

Today, I detach myself from you for I have come to know the truth and the truth sets me free and he whom the Son sets free, is free indeed.

In the name of Jesus, no longer do I crawl behind the Lord, sit at the same spot, stand as He walks on. I walk, side by side with my Lord, in Jesus mighty name!!

I no longer lag behind, I pick up spiritual pace and my growth in Christ is exponential as from today and beyond in Jesus name!!!

 

A mighty Amen!!!

 

Today, our text for consideration is a very familiar one: Ezekiel 47:1–12. Many times, this passage is used to illustrate the depth of relationship we can cultivate with our Lord. It paints a vivid picture of what to expect when our walk with Him keeps deepening and growing.

How amazing would it be if we could measure the depth of our walk with the Lord ourselves, right? Even better when it is the Lord Himself doing the measuring, because then we won’t reduce our experience of Him to the limits of our own exposure, understanding, or human frames of thought.

If we try to know God only within those limits, we will never truly know Him as He intends under the New Covenant. Our growth will remain confined to mere activities and adherence to doctrines.

 

And that is exactly what the enemy wants because if he can keep us busy with religion but far from intimacy, we will miss the fullness of life in Christ.

So as we journey through today’s study, let’s pause and soak in the words of this song:

 

I Want to Know You More Song by Don Moen

 

One thing have I desired

Forever will I seek

To behold the beauty of His holiness

And to dwell within the presence of the King

How could I ask for more?

He’s done so much for me

For I have tasted of the goodness of the Lord

And I’ve feasted at the table of the King

 

I just want to know Him more (I just want to know Him more), oh-oh

I just want to know Him more (oh yeah)

You’ve called me by Your name (thank God for Him)

And You’ve filled me with Your love

You have covered with mercy and with grace

And have showered me with blessings from above

And yet I know there’s more (and yet I know there’s more), much more

 

I hear You calling me

To a place where I have never been before

Where Your love is flowing

Deeper than the sea

I just want to know You more/4x

Open my eyes, Lord, I want to see

All you have promised and given to me

 

Oh, I want to know the secrets that are hidden in Your word

I want to know You, I want to know You

Know You

One day, I’ll see your face

And I’ll look into Your eyes

And through all eternity, I’ll sing Your praise

And forevermore fulfil my heart’s desire

I just want to know You more (I just want to know You more), oh-oh

I just want to know You more (oh yes, Lord)

 

We will be considering this passage of the Bible from the basis of the quality of life and not the quantity of it. Jesus said in John 17:3 ‘Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true [supreme and sovereign] God, and [in the same manner know] Jesus [as the] Christ whom You have sent’ (AMP).

 

What Jesus explains in clear terms in just a few words, is to establish that the life the Father promised us because we believe in His only begotten Son is not a life based on quantity but of quality. Therefore eternal life is not living forever without dying but living in the knowledge of the Father and the Son.

 

This is the only way not to perish in sin, self, and to Satan and his gimmicks as Hosea 4:6 highlights: ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge [of My law, where I reveal My will]’ (AMP).

 

God is seeking to lead us through quantifiable depths of knowing Him to unquantifiable but quality-based growth in the knowledge of Him. See it as a call to not just knowing Him deeper but one to loving Him deeper.

 

Loving God Deeper.

 

Let’s walk through the 12 verses together:

‘Then he [my guide] brought me back to the door of the house [the temple of the LORD]; and behold, water was flowing from under the threshold of the house (temple) toward the east, for the front of the temple was facing east. And the water was flowing down from under, from the right side of the house, from south of the altar.

2Then he brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate by the way of the gate that faces east. And behold, water was spurting out from the south side [of the gate]’.

 

It is clearly revealed across Scripture both in the Old and New Testament that God loved man first and had always sought to love man without any constraints. After man’s fall from God’s life into death in the Garden of Eden, God had made plans to restore man to that position of life in Himself. 

 

Why will God to this?

Because He loves! God loves so deeply that He did not refuse to lay down His own life to prove His love. He did not just love in words but in His actions and revealing His truth to us such that without us loving Him, He already loves us (1 John 3:16-18; 4: 9-10).

His love flows freely in the River of Life, from the altar where His throne resides. The motivation to let the River of life flow freely to man is from His love. Revelations 22:1 states it clearly that ‘the river of the water of life, clear as cyrstal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb (CSB).’

 

Take a moment and envision God’s love flowing like a river directly from where He is seated on His throne. The whole essence of the river of life is generative from the love God has for man and how determined He is to share His own life with us because He simply loves.

 

When the man went out toward the east with a measuring line in his hand, he measured a thousand cubits, and he led me through the water, water that was ankle-deep.

4Again he measured a thousand [cubits] and led me through the water, water that was knee-deep. Again he measured a thousand [cubits] and led me through the water, water reaching the hips. 

5Again he measured a thousand [cubits]; and it was a river that I could not pass through, for the water had risen, enough water to swim in, a river that could not be crossed [by wading].

 

The One who loves us knows fully well how incapable we are of loving Him by ourselves. No matter how much we try, we just never get it. We simply do not know how to love Him as He should be loved. He beckons at us with deliberate measures of guiding us into His love.

We need to first understand that His love for us is not of a quantifiable depth but one that calls us into deeper depth of His own life. That is the quality of life.

We see in these two verses how the guide is not in a hurry to plunge us into the immersive love of God. 

 

Ezekiel had to depend on the Guide to lead him into God’s love. He portrays as he guides the prophet Ezekiel that the life-giving love of God can only be experienced as far as our willingness to go is. The water has not stopped flowing and the depth of the water has always been. However, man’s willingness to plunge into it determines how much of God’s flowing love to be experienced.

 

Our spiritual walk  and growth is not only dependent on God but also how badly we want to experience it for He has made all due provisions (Eph. 1:3). What the Guide was measuring out for Ezekiel and inviting him into is the growing knowledge of God. The more God was willing to reveal Himself to Ezekiel, He invited Him closer and deeper into Himself.

 

Ezekiel also possessing a willing heart, faithfully followed as far as he was invited. 

 

But will you consider once again that the depth of the God-experience that Ezekiel was being invited into was not to simply know Him but to experience the depth of God’s love and what that love can produce in him. The deeper we are in God’s love, the more of the fullness of His life we will experience. 

 

Why is being deeper in love with God important?

 

Without being rooted and established in God’s love, we cannot experience the fullness of God. Check this out in Ephesians 3:17-19 (AMP)

17so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through your faith. And may you, having been [deeply] rooted and [securely] grounded in love,

18be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love [fully experiencing that amazing, endless love];

19and [that you may come] to know [practically, through personal experience] the love of Christ which far surpasses [mere] knowledge [without experience], that you may be filled up [throughout your being] to all the fullness of God [so that you may have the richest experience of God’s presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself].

 

The fullness of God in us is the fullness of His power in us, enabling us to live the Jesus kind of live. When we have God’s love and we are deeply enveloped in it, we find it easier to answer the question Jesus asked Peter upon His earthly departure back to heaven- John 21:15 Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these [others do–with total commitment and devotion]?”

 

Jesus asked this question thrice, asking if Peter was totally committed to Him and was willing to devote all to Him because if he did, Peter will not find it difficult to please God. 

 

Apostle Paul mentions in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 (AMP)

14For the love of Christ controls and compels us, because we have concluded this, that One died for all, therefore all died;

15and He died for all, so that all those who live would no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and was raised for their sake.

 

When we are deeply and firmly rooted in God’s love, the love that flows freely from His throne, we get to experience His life which translates into deep love for the Lord Jesus in our hearts. We in turn get to love Him in return as deeply as He loves us.

The evidence of this will be the manifestation of us no longer leaving for ourselves in anything or anyway but living solely for Him. This is because we are so in love with Him and will choose Him above all else.

 

Hence, Jesus asking Peter if he loved Him more than all else is Jesus asking if Peter is being led into doing the right things that please God solely because he loved God!

 

What we should then begin to seek for is to grow deeper in the love we have for God.

When we love God, deeply, we will find out that it becomes easier to have the mind that Jesus had (Phil. 2:5),

set aside every weight of sin that besets us (Heb. 12:1),

submit to God’s will to resist the devil and make him flee (Jms.4:7),

deny self daily to be able to take up our cross and follow Jesus (Lk. 9:23),

keep our hands on the plough and not look back (Lk. 9:62),

forgive as we have been forgiven (Matt. 6:14-15),

bear the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23) and overcome all limitations we can imagine.

 

This is because when we are deeply in love with Him, His love in us will control us and enable us to walk circumspectly in this sinful world as we await the return of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Eph. 5:15-16). 

 

You have been struggling with rising and falling in your walk with your Lord; you have been finding it difficult to say no to self and yes to God; your will has become stronger and God’s Spirit in you seem redundant. You look over the last one year and there is no remarkable difference in your growth in the Lord.

 

You question things in the Bible and can’t categorically say that you have grown in your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. When you weigh the content of your prayers, it has been filled with complaints and grumbling and not words of believe in God’s ability to take care of you.

You can’t stop worrying.

You can’t stop feeling faint.

You can’t find joy.

You have no hope.

You feel no peace.

You don’t have faith.

You are constantly defeated, daily.

You feel oppressed.

You see signs of the enemy’s torment in your life and you know you are always losing in the battle of life. 

 

Why not try seeking to love the Lord more? 

 

Why would Jesus ask Peter if he loved Him more than any other thing?

Peter had just convinced the other disciples to follow him to the sea to go fishing. He said he was going fishing and the others chose to follow him. Peter, Andrew, James, and John, did not think twice before they gave up following Jesus in  Matthew 4. But as soon as Jesus was out of their sight, He was out of their mind. They went off to where Jesus had called them away from. 

 

Jesus thus had to ask if Peter loved Him above all else because that seemed like the only way left for Peter to remain in Him, grow in and continue with following Jesus as His disciple. Jesus is simply saying that if you love me more than fishing and other things in your life, even though I am not physically with you, you will long for me.

You will thirst for me.

You will tarry in anticipation for my return.

You won’t lose hope because I am not there.

You won’t conclude this chapter of your life because you don’t see me anymore.

You won’t move on to other things because I am not here. 

Lets consider Mary Magdalene in John 20:

 

11But Mary [who had returned] was standing outside the tomb sobbing; and so, as she wept, she stooped down and looked into the tomb;

12and she saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 13And they said to her, “Woman, why are you crying?” She told them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”

14After saying this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.

15Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you crying? For whom are you looking?” Supposing that He was the gardener, she replied, “Sir, if you are the one who has carried Him away from here, tell me where you have put Him, and I will take Him away.”

16Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him in [g]Hebrew, “Rabboni!” (which means, Teacher).

17Jesus said to her, “[h]Do not hold Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.’”

18Mary Magdalene came, reporting to the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that He had said these things to her.

 

Mary was in such distinct when compared to Simon. Jesus did not need ask her if she loved Him because it was super evident. John and Peter went with her to the tomb to see if Jesus body was indeed no longer there. When the other two did not see His body, they left but Mary remained and she cried profusely because she does not know where His body was at.

 

Even if Jesus was no longer alive, she sought to go to any lengths to recover His body. Jesus had to come honour her longing to see Him, hold Him, and thus, she was the first to see the resurrected Jesus. All because she loved more! 

If only we also will love more, deeper, than we currently do. Then, we won’t struggle with sin, self, and Satan. These will definitely lose their hold over us because we deeply love the Lord and we seek to walk in His will daily. The Holy Spirit is our own Guide compared to the guide Ezekiel had.

He is the One to lead us deeper and deeper in our love for God which is only generated from the endless love the Father already has from us, flowing freely from His Throne into a massively deep and endless river of love-filled life.

His love will bring all deadness to life, will bring healing, will bring freshness, increase, restoration, impact, fruitfulness, a complete turn around because the Life-giving River, the Holy Spirit will never run out (Ezek. 47:5-12; Jhn. 7:38).

 

Listen and soak in the lyrics of this song:

 

Deeper in Love- Song by Don Moen

There is a longing only You can fill

A raging tempest only You can still

My soul is thirsting Lord to know You as I’m known

Drink from the river that flows before Your throne

 

Take me deeper

Deeper in love with You

Jesus hold me close

In Your embrace

 

Take me deeper

Deeper than I’ve ever been before

I just want to love You more and more

How I long to be deeper in love

 

Sunrise to sunrise I will seek Your face

Drawn by the Spirit to the promise of Your grace

My heart has found in You a hope that will abide

Here in Your presence forever satisfied

 

Take me deeper

Deeper in love with You

Jesus hold me close

In Your embrace

Take me deeper

 

Deeper than I’ve ever been before cw24

I just want to love You more and more

How I long to be deeper in love

 

Take me deeper

Deeper in love with You

Jesus hold me close

In Your embrace

 

Take me deeper

Deeper than I’ve ever been before

I just want to love You more and more

How I long to be deeper in love

 

Have you considered how deep, wide, long, and high God’s love is? Are you experiencing His endless love and the power of life that flows through it?

 

Ephesians 3: 19 calls us into an experience of God’s divine love, calling us into reciprocating His love with our own love. The deeper we love Him, the more we are ‘made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God’ (NLT). 

 

 

Let Us Pray

• Appreciate God for His goodness and loving kindness towards you. Thank Him with the fruit of your lips as you glorify His name for His good deeds. 
• Worship His holiness for He is forever holy and there is no unrighteousness in Him.
• Thank Him for His love for you. Say Father thank You for loving me, faithfully, steadfastly. Thank Him for His endless love.
• Thank Jesus for choosing to die the worst death, the death of a criminal for your sake. Appreciate Him for His sacrifice by singing a song that reflects this love He has shown towards you. 
• Thank the Holy Spirit for not leaving you but being true to His Person as the Guide into all truth.
• Ask the Lord for mercy  for all known and unknown sins. Confess your known sins to the Lord and ask for His mercy. Ask that Jesus’ blood will avail for you and grant you forgiveness.
• Thank God for the depth, width, height, and length of God’s love for you. Thank Him because it is by this endless love that you receive forgiveness and reconciliation with God.

 

• Ask God for mercy for the many ways you have taken His love for you for granted. Ask that He will show you mercy today for the times you have not reckoned with His love for you.

 

Eph. 3:16- I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.

• Father, I know You have blessed me with all I need for life and godliness and I haven’t been maximising it. Today I please, in Your mercy, please empower me with inner strength by Your Spirit to begin to make use of all these spiritual resources at my disposal so I can love You more, deeply in Jesus name.

 

Eph. 3:17- Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.

• Lord Jesus, please come and take full residence in my heart that I may forge daily intimacy with You to see You more clearly, love You more dearly, and follow You more nearly.
• Come and make my heart Your home, Lord and be everything I am and all I know that truly, because I am deeply in love with You, I do nothing without You Jesus.
• Holy Spirit, empower me with grace to cultivate intimacy with You that my roots may grow deeper, my feet walk in deeper in the river of God’s love. Let the life in Your love fill me and make me strong in Christ and make my faith stronger in Him in Jesus name.
• Walk me Father through the experience of Your endless love, in Jesus name.

 

Psalm 27:4 – I have asked the Lord for one thing; one thing only do I want: to live in the Lord’s house all my life, to marvel there at his goodness, and to ask for his guidance.

• Holy Spirit, please fill me with the desire that longs for God’s presence.
• Replace by Your mercy all desires in me contrary to the desire for You, Father.
• My prayer today, and forever is that I long for Your presence and to dwell in Your presence, becoming a carrier of Your presence everywhere I go. Lord let it be unto me in Jesus name.
• Let the majestic of Your Person always be a wonder for me to marvel at O God in Jesus name.

 

Psalm 63:1 – O God, you are my God, and I long for you. My whole being desires you; like a dry, worn-out, and waterless land, my soul is thirsty for you.

• God, I acknowledge today that I am but a dry, worn-out, and waterless land. I am indeed thirsty to drink of the abundance of Your love, to experience the fullness of Your life. Please plunge me in the life-giving river. Let my thirst be  quenched with an overwhelming experience of Your endless love. Let me be soaked in a life-changing experience of drinking of You, never again to become a waterless land because I daily grow in love with You, in Jesus name!
• Upon my waking at sunrise, and sleeping at night, let my one desire be You, o God!

 

2 Corinthian 3:15-16-  15Yet still today, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, 16but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.

• Today, I tear off my face every veil in the similitude of love for God but is not love for God. I dismantle all seeming acts of self-righteousness, activities, and seeming followship of Church doctrines and not Christ. I remove off my heart every facade that deceives me into thinking I love God where as I have been seeking my will. I tear it off in the name of Jesus/3x
• Today, I will my heart over to You all over again Jesus. I renew my love for You. I renew my heart for You. New love for You blossoms within me in the name of Jesus. 

 

Job 14: 7-9 – There is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its shoots will not die. 8If its roots grow old in the ground and its stump starts to die in the soil, the scent of water makes it thrive and produce twigs like a sapling.

• Holy Spirit, please do what You must in me to make genuine love for my Lord Jesus begin to sprout again in me. If it has never been there in the first place, please do what You must that I may begin to partake of this endless love and love Him more.
• Let hope for a renewed intimate relationship with You, a love-filled relationship where I reciprocrate Your love for me with love for You, spring forth in me Lord, in Jesus name. 

 

John 14:23- Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. 

• The prove of my love to You is by living in obedience to Your will. I choose that life today. Lord Jesus, give me Your grace to daily live in obedience to the Father’s will that I may experience and enjoy the life that flows through the Father’s love for me.
• Let love for You compel me Father, to living the Jesus life daily in.
• Make Your home with me, Lord. Come in to me, let my life be pleasant unto You, a living sacrifice that is holy and acceptable to You. 
• Doing God’s will daily, become paramount in my life. I am enable by the Holy Spirit to live this life in the name of Jesus! 
• Obeying the Father’s will becomes easier for me because I love Him. I love Him hence I obey Him. This is my daily life of victory in Jesus name! 

 

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

• I refuse to love the world and the things that are in it anymore in the name of Jesus.
• I say no to the things of this world that have veiled my sight and have lured me away from the river of God’s endless love.
• Today, I renounce all the affections of this world that have kept me bound in heart to the material and ephemeral things of this world in the name of Jesus.
• Because I cannot love God and still love the world, today, I boldly make my decision and I proclaim for all to hear that I, ————, choose to love God above my family and loved ones, above my self, and above my material possessions in Jesus name. 
• I declare today that henceforth, God’s live dominates my heart. I love God and His love controls me and leads me in His righteousness.

 

1 John 4:12- No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us

• I reveal love for God to others. I find it easier to love others because I love God. I let go of all hurts, doubts, distrust, unforgiveness, towards my brothers and sisters in Christ. I begin to manifest God’s endless love to others with ease, by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in me.
• Father, let Your love be thoroughly perfected in me. Dwell in me, O God! Richly dwell in me in Jesus name!

 

• Continue to pray until your joy is full in His presence. 
• Pray with more Scripture verses as the Lord may lay it upon your heart.
• Bless His holy name for answered prayers.
• In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen!

 

The Bible Study discussion is at 9pm on Google Meet. Prepare to be there, sisters. Study the text ahead and come, let’s rub out hearts together at 9pm. God bless you, sis.