How can we love the Lord? How can we show our love to the Lord?
How do we show our love to others today?
How did we show our love to our mothers today?
What happened to me on the way to revival?
I passed someone hitch hiking. I
decided not to pick them up long before I got close enough to see who it was.
It was an elderly woman. I
drove on by. On my way back home
I saw the same woman still walking and hitch hiking.
She had walked about 13 miles. I
decided then and there to trust the Lord and obey what I felt in my heart.
So, I went back and picked her up and took her home.
She told me that she had walked about 18 miles and no one had picked
her up. She said that she had been praying for someone to pick her
up. Take a chance on God and love
someone.
Community Ministry: Loving the Lord in listening
to Him and loving those that he loves by ministering to them in His name.
Scripture Text:
Deut 10:12 (KJS) And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require
of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love
him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul,
13 To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command
thee this day for thy good? 14 Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens
[is] the LORD'S thy God, the earth [also], with all that therein [is]. 15
Only the LORD had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their
seed after them, [even] you above all people, as [it is] this day. 16
Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked.
17 For the LORD your God [is] God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a
mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: 18
He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the
stranger, in giving him food and raiment. 19 Love ye therefore the stranger:
for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.
20 Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God; him shalt thou serve, and to him shalt
thou cleave, and swear by his name. 21 He [is] thy praise, and he [is] thy
God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine
eyes have seen. 22 Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten
persons; and now the LORD thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for
multitude.
The Living Gospel of the
Living God comes in small packages of living flesh called human beings...
1. Love is
Defined.
Love is words with actions. It is the living
demonstration of our love. Are
only words? What is the acid test
of love? What have we done and
said to love one another? Do we Love Him more than these?
God has defined his love to us in John 3:16. He gave… I
defined my love to my wife of almost 20 years when I daily give myself to her.
How are we Defining His Love to others?
This is the Love of the Church. Love
to God, Love to Ourselves, and Love to others in and out of the church.
Mat 25:44 Then
shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or
athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not
minister unto thee?45 Then
shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of
these, ye did it not to me.
I
Cor. 13:4 Love is patient, love
is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It is not rude, it is
not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight
in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails …
13
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of
these is love.
2.
Love is a Decision.
Decide to love the Lord
who gave himself for us. God
stands at the door of the church and he invites us to invite him in and then
to go out with him to love others, the strangers, because we remember when we
were strangers ourselves.
·
Love the Lord with all of our
heart, soul
·
Love yourself as one that is
loved and valued by the Lord…
·
Love others as you love yourself.
Jesus has chose you and loved you to become your sacrifice.
Matt
22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first
and great commandment. 39 And the second [is] like unto it, Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself.
3.
Love is in
Deeds.
Words and Deeds must go
together to show the Lord that we truly love Him. Peter’s words didn’t match his deeds. Although he said that he loved the Lord more than all of
these other disciples, he had denied the Lord 3 times before the Rooster
crowed. He needed a revival of
Deeds.
12… what doth the LORD thy
God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways,
and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with
all thy soul, 13 To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes,
which I command thee this day for thy good?
The Lord Jesus himself
has already set the example for us to follow.
After feeding the
disciples their breakfast, He then gives him the command to go and feed the
Lord’s little lambs and sheep. Three
times Peter denied that he was a follower of the Lord and now three times
Jesus gives the command to Feed the Sheep.
We must love in words
and in deeds.
James 1:27 Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To
visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.
1 John 3:18 My
little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and
in truth.
Would we make a
commitment to Love the that we say we love?
"Does
a plastic heart have love in it?" This
question was sent by seven-year-old Linda Griggs of Pittsburgh to the famed
heart surgeon Dr. Michael DeBakey of Houston, Texas.
Dr. DeBakey replied:
"Yes,
a plastic heart has love in it, a great deal of love.
"The
love in a plastic heart comes from many people who love other people, and
don't want them to die.
"So
these people work all day and often all night to build a heart that will make
people live longer. "If
you think of how much love there would be in hundreds of hearts, then that is
how much love there is in a plastic heart."