How's Your Love Life? - Week Two

We Love God.....

1) With all our heart --> our actions.  One of the ways we show our love for God through our actions is by watching what comes out of our mouths! For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Matt. 12:34b

2) With all our soul --> our feelings. God wants our love through our actions, but now emotionless actions which can turn into simply going through the motions for the sake of motion. He wants us to do what we do for Him with passion!  But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you: to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to obey his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul.  Joshua 22:5

3) With all our mind --> our thoughts. God knows our thoughts (Psalm 94:11) and the motives behind our thoughts. We need to be more than just an intellectual believer - we are commanded to love God with our actions, feelings and thoughts. And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him (action) with wholehearted devotion (feeling) and with a willing mind, for the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts.  I Chronicles 28:9

4) With all our strength --> our entire being. We cannot compartmentalize our love for God - it has to come from everything we are made up of - heart, soul and mind! Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.  Psalm 150:6

"Everything in your Christian life; everything about knowing Him and His will, depends on the quality of your love relationship with God."  ~ Henry Blackaby, Experiencing God

How's Your Love Life? - Week One

Welcome to Week One of our study, How's Your Love Life? Loving God, Yourselves and Others. This study will be recorded live every Tuesday at 7:30p (EST) for the next 5 weeks. Please join us anytime - it's FREE and flexible. You can sign up ------> here!

Before we can love God, ourselves and others, we have to recognize and receive God's love for us. This is something many of us struggle with - comprehending how He can love us the way He does? Let's look at three ways God loves...

God's Love For Us Is....

1) Unconditional = without conditions or limits. God doesn't have a check-list He's using to see if we're ready or deserving of His love. He's not waiting for us all to get our act together before He'll love us. Romans 5:8 tells us that "But God demonstrated/showed His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." 

2) Unending = without end; forever faithful. God loves us with an unfailing love! Psalm 100:5 reminds us "For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations." Not only is God's love unending, so is His faithfulness.

3) Unmistakable = cannot be mistaken; a clear example. One of the last commands Jesus left with His disciples is found in John 15:12, "...Love each other as I have loved you." He didn't just leave it at "Love one another." He used himself as a clear, unmistakable example of how to love.

* Application: Have you recognized and received God's love as unconditional or are you still trying to earn His love? Have you recognized and received God's love as unending or are you fearing that He will give up on you? Have you recognized and received God's love as unmistakable or are you wondering if He really does love you?

* Action: Spend time this week reading and meditating on I John 4: 7-21. Underline the words love / loved / loves.

The Spit of the Soldiers

As we prepare to remember the painful death of our Savior and celebrate His triumphant resurrection this week, I want to share a devotion from one of my favorite authors, Max Lucado. Don't miss the another great resource at the end.....

The Spit of the Soliders: The whipping was the first deed of the soldiers.The crucifixion was the third. (No, I didn’t skip the second. We’ll get to that in a moment.) Though his back was ribboned with wounds, the soldiers loaded the crossbeam on Jesus’ shoulders and marched him to the Place of a Skull and executed him.

We don’t fault the soldiers for these two actions. After all, they were just following orders. But what’s hard to understand is what they did in between. Here is Matthew’s description:
Jesus was beaten with whips and handed over to the soldiers to be crucified. The governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the governor’s palace, and they all gathered around him. They took off his clothes and put a red robe on him. Using thorny branches, they made a crown, put it on his head, and put a stick in his right hand. Then the soldiers bowed before Jesus and made fun of him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” They spat on Jesus. Then they took his stick and began to beat him on the head. After they finished, the soldiers took off the robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified. (Matt. 27:26–31 NCV)

The soldiers’ assignment was simple: Take the Nazarene to the hill and kill him. But they had another idea. They wanted to have some fun first. Strong, rested, armed soldiers encircled an exhausted, nearly dead, Galilean carpenter and beat up on him. The scourging was commanded. The crucifixion was ordered. But who would draw pleasure out of spitting on a half-dead man?

Spitting isn’t intended to hurt the body—it can’t. Spitting is intended to degrade the soul, and it does. What were the soldiers doing? Were they not elevating themselves at the expense of another? They felt big by making Christ look small.

Allow the spit of the soldiers to symbolize the filth in our hearts. And then observe what Jesus does with our filth. He carries it to the cross.

Through the prophet he said, “I did not hide my face from mocking and spitting” (Isa. 50:6 NIV). Mingled with his blood and sweat was the essence of our sin.

God could have deemed otherwise. In God’s plan, Jesus was offered wine for his throat, so why not a towel for his face? Simon carried the cross of Jesus, but he didn’t mop the cheek of Jesus. Angels were a prayer away. Couldn’t they have taken the spittle away?

They could have, but Jesus never commanded them to. For some reason, the One who chose the nails also chose the saliva. Along with the spear and the sponge of man, he bore the spit of man.

The sinless One took on the face of a sinner so that we sinners could take on the face of a saint.

*Want to read more by Max? Here's a great article entitled - The Passion, The Pain and The Promise. Print it off and read it this week....HAPPY EASTER!!

No More ......

                                   
As we come to the end of our Know the Bible study, we're encouraged once again to see what the future holds for Believers. The book of Revelation is just that - the revealing of who Christ was and is and is to come. He is the righteous Judge who will punish the wicked and the triumphant King who will return to establish His kingdom for all eternity.

One of the privileges of being part of His kingdom is found in Revelation 21:4 - "He (God) will wipe all tears from their eyes, and there will be no more death, suffering, crying or pain. These things of the past are gone forever."

We "hear" God's words of comfort in this devotional from the book Heaven Calling: "Beloved, one day I will gently touch your face and wipe away your tears. Tears you've shed in sorrow over sin. Tears over the pain in your heart from regret. Tears for the loss of loved ones to sickness and death. Tears from the hurt that people inflicted upon you. Tears of frustration and anger.

I know about tears. My Son wept at the grave of His friend, Lazarus and in the garden before His own death. One day tears will be no more. There will be no more reason to cry, for I will remove all of that regret and loss and hurt and frustration and anger.....Gone!  I will replace your sorrows with myself, my love, my presence. I will make all things new." 

As soon as I finish this writing, I will go attend the funeral of a close friend's 6-month old grandson who passed away last Friday. One minute he was sleeping peacefully and the next he was in the arms of Jesus. There will be tears. There will be questions. There will be doubts about God's purpose in all this sadness. No one has the answers - and in times like this, we wish we did.

This song came to mind last night as I was thinking about what to write today and I wanted to share it as an encouragement and a reminder of that day when all tears, questions, fears, and doubts will disappear.

* Lyrics to No More Night :
Words & music by Walt Harrah

The timeless theme, Earth and Heaven will pass away. It’s not a dream, God will make all things new that day. Gone is the curse from which I stumbled and fell. Evil is banished to eternal hell.

No more night. No more pain. No more tears. Never crying again. And praises to the great "I AM." We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

See all around, now the nations bow down to sing. The only sound is the praises to Christ, our King. Slowly the names from the book are read. I know the King, so there’s no need to dread.

No more night. No more pain. No more tears. Never crying again. And praises to the great "I AM." We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

See over there, there’s a mansion, oh, that’s prepared just for me, Where I will live with my savior eternally. There will be no more night. No more pain. No more tears. Never crying again. And praises to the great "I AM." We will live in the light of the risen Lamb.

Download the lesson from Revelation

True or False?

Can you identify a fake? Do you know what to look for when it comes to telling the difference between who is lying and who is speaking the truth? In his short letter to the Jewish Christians, Jude wanted to celebrate their shared salvation and belief in Christ, but found it more urgent to warn them about the threat of false teachers invading the church and how they should respond to them.

Jude's warning was not just for the people of his day, it's a warning for us as well. He wants us to be aware of what these false teachers look like, act like and want to see happen. Many of them are looking to turn us away from God's truth and to embrace their false teaching - also known as apostasy. Jude sought to motivate his readers to wake up from their complacency and take action - and it's his call to us as well!

* Who They Are: Jude 4 describes them as "godless men who have secretly slipped in among you." Their goal is to get Christians to believe that they can do whatever they want without fear of God's punishment. They have made God's grace a license for immorality and make light of God's holiness and justice.  Even today, wome Christians minimize the sinfulness of sin, believing how they live has little to do with their faith.

* What They Do: False teachers's attitudes represent a rebellion toward God's truth and a desire to promote themselves and their beliefs. Jude warns that this only will lead to their own corruption and destruction (v.10b). Their attitudes include pride, selfishness, jealousy, greed, lust for power and control and a disregard for God's will.

* What They Are: False teachers promise much but produce little, like rainless clouds and fruitless trees. Verses 14-16 describe them as ungodly in their acts, their ways and with their words. They are grumblers, complainers and faultfinders following their own lusts. They speak evil of anyone who disagrees with them and their "swelling words" boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.

* What We Must Do: The Jewish believers had been warned. They had been told what to look and listen for...and so have we! Jude gives us a plan of action in v. 20-21. 1) Build yourselves up in the faith - know what you believe and why you believe it. 2) Pray consistently in the Spirit of God's will and 3) Keep ourselves in God's love by living close to Him and not listening to false teachers who want to pull us away.

Do these false teachers exist today? Yes! As long as Satan is alive and well, false teachers will threaten the church with error. We must do what we need to do to know the truth! One of the revealing characteristics of a false teacher is his fearless and disrespectful disregard for God's truth and ungodly behavior. They act as if God will not punish them for what they say and do....but the truth is - God always punishes rebellion against Him. Know that genuine servants of God will faithfully point to Christ with their words and actions.

We must be able to tell the difference between true vs. false teaching. As in Jude's day, the false teachers slipped in secretly, not making a big announcement of their arrival, and then slowly started getting people to question God's truth. It's not an option to be complacent. We are to earnestly fight for our faith. You've heard that a frog won't know it's boiling to death when the heat is turned up a little at a time - so we must not let our faith die, one lie at a time.

Knock! Knock! Who's There?

Do you know who's at the door? John warned the believers not to receive false teachers into their homes.  (2 John 10) By doing so, they were approving of what these deceivers were saying and how they were living. (In John's day, these false teachers did not affirm that Jesus actually came in the flesh - that He was only a spirit.) John admonished them to be alert because deceitful people will appear to be saying the right things and will seem sincere and believable. They attract people with their eloquence and likability...so beware!

Do we invite false teachers into our homes today? We may physically allow people of other religions in, in hopes of "converting" them, but we must be careful that we are strong in what we believe and why before we do.  Aside from this, most times, we don't invite deceivers in intentionally. Remember though, they are deceitful. They are doing the work of the enemy and his main weapons are distraction and disillusion. We too must be alert and aware of what/who we are allowing into our homes. One of the easiest ways for deceivers to enter is through our eyes.

What we watch and/or allow to be watched on television is an easy way for deceivers to enter our homes. Are we distracted with false teachers preaching a false "gospel"  even though it sounds alot like what we believe? Are we allowing our children, and even ourselves, to be drawn into the disillusion that success and fame - the Hollywood lifestyle - regardless of its cost, is what they should be dreaming of and pursuing? Soon, the things we watch and the people we admire become idols we can't live without.

What about books and magazines? Are we distracted by the flash and fashion, promises and potions, gossip and glamor that we are disillusioned into believing that everything we read is true? Or are we strong enough in the real Truth, that we can tell the difference? Do our teen age girls (and boys) know the people on the covers of magazines are not "real"? Yet sadly, they are deceived and disillusioned into thinking they must look like them in order to be accepted and loved.

What about computers/phones? The false teachers we allow into our homes through the computer/phone screens are just as deceiving, but easier to hide. We spend more time looking at these screens then we do anything else it seems! We allow them to distract us from the actual people and "real friends" around us. Some become disillusioned and struggle identifying what is real and what is virtual reality. We no longer use the phone to talk to people and the social skills of our children are becoming non-existent.

So do we know who's at our door begging to be let into our home? Are we leaving our doors unlocked and allowing anyone and anything to come in and make themselves comfortable? Have the deceivers become a part of the family that we can't imagine life without them?

We must be aware and alert  - as Peter warns us - because our enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour (I Peter 5:8). He wants to devour our faith, our family and our future. Do not give him a foothold into your home or a place to settle! (Ephesians  4:27)

Download this week's lesson from 2 & 3 John

It's Spring Cleaning Day!

Is it cleaning day for you today? Are there some things in your own life (attitudes, actions, affiliations) that  need to be removed? Can you see where these things are interferring with your fellowship with God?

John, the only remaining original disciple of Jesus, reminds his readers in I John, about the importance of walking in the light (with God), the benefits of fellowship and the need for cleansing of sin.

In I John 1:7, John writes, "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." This verse gives us three ways to stay clean in a spiritually polluted world:

1) By walking in the light. This means striving to be so honest before God and man that you wouldn't be embarassed or ashamed to have anyone read in tomorrow's newspaper , what you did today! Walking in the light means following what is good, pure, holy, right and true = folllowing God! Who or what are you following today? Is it leading you to closer fellowship with God or in the opposite direction?

2) By being accountable. To grow strong in an area of weakness, sometimes you need someone mature enough to deserve your confidence, gracious enough to put up with your inconsistencies and honest enough to confront you. Above all, they should be commited to you  in love. Who we fellowship with should make our walk with God stronger. Do you have such a person in your life? Are you this person for someone else?


3) By dealing with your sin right away. The moment that you recognize you have sinned, should be the moment that leads you to confession. You must believe that Christ's blood cleanses us from all sin and that according to I John 1:9 - "If we confess our sins, He (God) is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrightesousness." Confess today - then get up and continue your walk with God.
 
If there's something rotten in your refrigerator you know it every time you open the door. You may not know exactly where it is, but the smell tells you it's in there. Our lives are like that. If there's something wrong within us, those we come into contact with are going to sense it. It gives off an "odor" that's detectable. That's why we must continually open ourselves to God and allow His Spirit to cleanse our hearts and remove whatever is hindering our walk with Him.
 
What are you going to clean out of your heart and life today? An action that you'd be ashamed of if it were on the front page of the paper? A weakness that continues to overtake your best intentions to change because you are trying to do it all on your own? Unconfessed sin that will continue to rot and cause others to sense somthing is wrong, even if you're doing your best to cover it up?
 
Make today a cleaning day that will leave you not only clean on the inside but shining bright on the outside :)
 
Download this week's lesson from I John