October 11, 2021 12:00 am
God created each of us so we could experience His love and love Him in return.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Family Life Today
Dave & Ann Wilson, Bob Lepine
The Masculine Journey
Sam Main
Focus on the Family
Jim Daly
Our Daily Bread Ministries
Various Hosts
Focus on the Family
Jim Daly
Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday October 11th. Does there seem to be something missing in your life? The only one who can fill the vacancy is God Himself.
Get to know Him today through a relationship with His Son Jesus Christ. Have you ever pondered seriously why God allowed you to be born? Well more than likely you've thought about it but the question is what kind of a conclusion did you come to?
Or did you come to any conclusion or did you just say, well I just guess I was born and here I am and I'll make the best of it. Well the reason God allowed you to be born is in order for God to express His wonderful love to you. You may not feel it, you may not even understand anything about the love of God but that's why you were created.
Not only that He could express His wonderful love to you but that you could love Him in return. And you see when man fell in the Garden of Eden and sin came into this world it just really fouled up our capacity to understand the love of God, to receive the love of God and to love Him in return. But that's why Jesus came to liberate us from the power of sin in our life so that you and I could love God Almighty with all of our heart and that we could receive His love for us. And that's what I want to talk about in this message today and I want to begin a series entitled Liberated to Love and the title of this message is Created to Be Lovers and I want you to turn if you will to Luke chapter 10. In Luke chapter 10 a familiar passage of Scripture Jesus makes it very clear that you and I were created to be lovers and you recall this is the incident where they're asking Him a question about the law and in the 25th verse of this 10th chapter the scripture says and behold a certain lawyer stood up and put him to the test saying teacher what shall I do to inherit eternal life and he said to him what is written in the law how does it read to you and he answered and said you should love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and your neighbor as yourself and he said to him you have answered correctly do this and you will live now I want us to look first of all at this whole idea of the nature of love in the New Testament for example there are two words for love one of them is agape love which is a sacrificial kind of love the other is phileo love like we get Philadelphia the city of brotherly love phileo love is an affection an approval friendship kind of love the other word for love which is not done in the New Testament is the word eros from which we get the idea of physical love or a passion or sexual love the first two is found in the scripture that the other one is not and of the 300 and sometimes that love is found in the Bible 185 times of it is found in the New Testament and of those times 140 some are sacrificial love agape love so when we talk about the love that God has for us here when you talk about love you're talking about this kind of attitude that love always asks what's best for the other person love asks the question what can I be and what can I do in your behalf what can I be to edify you and to grow you up into Christ like this and to build you up love is always looking out for the other person and love is gentle and kind love is forgiving and loyal and faithful and true and love has many many qualities which we'll come to in the series but just to get us started in this whole aspect of why God created us to be lovers simply to say that love is always asking the question what's best for the other one and what can I do and what can I be in your behalf and so God created you and me to love us and what is he always asking us he doesn't have to ask us any question but what is he always doing he's always expressing that love according to what we need him to be for us what our needs are at the moment and he is faithful and loyal and loving and kind and you see true love doesn't keep score true love doesn't have a book it keeps score you did this and this and this because you see true genuine love is a forgiving love and God has given us the pattern by which we are to love ourselves and we're to love others when we think about the kind of love that he has this unconditional love of God that knows no conditions it doesn't make any difference who we are what we are where we've been where we're going his love for us is absolute there are no conditions to his love no ifs no ands no buts no conditions whatsoever when we experience the love of God we are being absolutely genuinely loved penetrated every facet of our being by a love that knows no limitations and that is absolutely complete and full and contenting there's nothing in the world like experiencing the love of God now let's look at that love for just a moment because he says we are to love him he says if you want to know what the whole law is all about here's what it's about it's about loving God and then loving others as yourself so first of all let's look at this idea of loving God now he said to these people who the scribes and Pharisees and others who were there asking questions what he did he's referred them back to the law of Moses and the command of Moses that they knew so I want you to go back if you will to the sixth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy in the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy is what the Hebrews call the Shema that is this was a passage of Scripture that all the male adults recited every morning and every evening the fourth and fifth verse look at this fourth and fifth verse of the sixth chapter Deuteronomy he says hero Israel the Lord is our God the Lord is one and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your might notice if you will he says here Oh Israel the Lord our God the Lord is one the word God is Jehovah the faithful covenant keeper the faithful one absolute in faithfulness Lord Elohim infinite in power so he says hero Israel the one who is the faithful covenant keeper the Lord Almighty the Lord God infinite in power he says you to love him with all of your heart with all of your soul with all of your might now back to Leviticus chapter 19 when he was giving the law he said in verse 34 the stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you and you shall love him as yourself Jesus said of these 613 commands of Moses all the laws the Mosaic law he says you can wrap them all up upon loving God and loving your neighbors yourself he says that all hinges upon that why because God created you and me to be lovers and first of all to be lovers of Almighty God himself and so he introduces this in just that way of identifying himself that he is Jehovah the one true God there is only one true God and he is Jehovah this God who Elohim infinite in power so that he is faithful to his covenants to us and he is infinite in power to be able to keep every single promise that he's made to us now it's interesting when you look in the scriptures that in the Old Testament five times God says he's a jealous God now if you and I said to someone that that person is jealous we would imply that there's something about their character their attitude that's not right and needs to be changed but when God declares that he's jealous what he's expressing is this that his love for us is of such nature and of such quality and is so absolutely essential and important to everything about our life because it's ever a purpose for living that he desires that we be so committed and tuned into him that anything that competes with our love and our loyalty for him absolutely does not fit who we are we are to love one another we are to love ourselves with the deeper love each other but nothing is to take priority over our love for him now look if you will in Deuteronomy chapter 4 and the 24th verse notice what he says he says for the Lord your God is a consuming fire a jealous God and again in the fifth chapter and the six chapters each time he says that God is a jealous God now he is jealous because God knows that whenever our allegiance and our loyalty and our devotion has any competitors in our life whatsoever and we put other things and other people before we do him there is an idol in our life any form of idolatry that competes with that God says he hates it now all the idols weren't destroyed in the Old Testament and all the idols don't belong to other religions today because there are many idols whether it is the idol of sports or the idol of money or the idol of sex or whatever it may be business position prominence prestige fame and money whatever it might be an idol can be anything that comes between God and ourselves grabs their attention and directs our thoughts and dominates and controls our life God hates it he says I created you for me I created to express this wondrous and comparable indescribable love of mine this forgiving love of mine to you in such a fashion that you would understand who I am that you would know me as the one true God and knowing me that you would desire to worship me and desire to serve me that you would praise me and honor me not only not only by your lips but also by your conduct and so since we are created to be lovers if we miss learning to love God and being loved by him and experiencing that no matter what we accomplish in what we do in life we've missed the whole purpose for living and so God hates all forms of idolatry he says in this passage how are we to love him so not half-heartedly we to love him with all of our heart the seat of our emotion all of our soul the core of our personality with all of our mind our mind is to be consumed with him and all of our strength that is this isn't some half-hearted kind of devotion to him this is absolute genuine total submission and loyalty and devotion and love to him he is the center and the core of our life and everything is to revolve around him and if you think about your life for just the moment when you're gonna make a decision what's the first thing you ask will it profit you will somebody else think or what is the Lord Jesus Christ think if he's the center of my life if he is and he is to be the very core of our being then everything must get sifted through him everything revolves around him every desire every wish every dream every hope every plan our schedule our work our labors how we go about it our relationships everything is to be centered in him what does he think because that's the reason we're alive we are alive to receive and to return to reciprocate in love to Almighty God and so therefore if our life is lived at any time apart from him we have forgotten our very purpose for living there is no other reason to be in existence in the fact that God chose to create us to love us and to express that love he didn't need us he could have created a world with all kinds of things but without us but God chose to create us to love him he is so full of love he is absolutely the essence of love and love is so absolutely important to God and it is such an essence of who he is what he wanted to do is to give himself to us and how is the best way for God to give himself to us for you and me to enjoy what he is the Bible says that God is spirit God is light God is holding God is love all genuine love stems from him it flows from him and so what did he do he created all of humanity to be able to experience what he was and that is what he is and that is love and so God has created us to be lovers lovers of Almighty God first of all and if I genuinely love him I will submit myself to him I will ask God father what is best for you in my life today what do you want me to be and to do in your behalf today how do you want me to represent you today father because love is always giving and love is always yielding and love is always expressing itself and so when he says God is love he is the essence of all love and he can't listen he sent the Lord Jesus Christ as a living walking demonstration of what it's like think about this no place that I know when the gospel is that Jesus ever said anybody I love you he never said it but what was he always doing expressing it he knew how to express the father's love and Jesus Christ came into this world to show us that demonstrate to us what genuine love is all about the highest pinnacle of the essence of love is when he went to the cross absolute total sacrificial love for sinners like ourselves he says we're to love him with all of our heart all of our soul all of our mind all of our strength now why are we to love him I mean why love him well think about this is he not worthy of our love look what he's done for us he has done for us what we could never do for ourselves has he not committed himself to us that if you and I trust him as our personal Savior no matter what we go through in life he's gonna take us home to heaven the Bible says that the Lord Jesus Christ went back to heaven to prepare a place for you and me has he not committed himself to answer our prayers to give us divine guidance and direction throughout our life has not Almighty God made this awesome unbreakable commitment and covenant relationship with us do we not love this God of ours probably most people do not we're to love him because he's worthy of our love because of what he's done for us because he has loved us first no one of us that I think I'm gonna love God maybe I can get him to love me now I say that people don't say that but in essence that's exactly what a lot of people do they think somehow I've got to get God to love me and so they decide that if I do the following things maybe God will love me my friend listen to me carefully you can't get this omnipotent omniscient omnipresent indescribable incomparable immeasurable God to love you one bit more than he already loves you and loved you before you were ever born you do not have to do anything to get God to love you listen that's why he created you to love you and secondly you can't ever do anything bad enough to cause God to stop loving you and no matter how hard his disciplined hand comes down that has nothing to do with the fact that he does not love you it has to do that he does love you most people are gonna go through life never loving God they will have a relationship and they'll talk to him and they'll pray to him but they will never experience the love of God because the truth is he will always be slightly distant out there they get on their knees and talk to him up yonder or they'll talk to him but somehow God being this genuine loving father who wants to pour out his love upon me and pour out his love in me and pour out his love through me that's what he wants above everything else that's why he created us and so he says he first loved us before you and I ever thought about loving him and the truth is you can't know him you can't really know God unless you love him and you can't love him until you know him and so you see that's why Jesus came he says I came that he came that you and I may know the Father and to know him is to have eternal life and what he did he came to connect us to the Father so we could fulfill the Father's purpose in our life Jesus came to liberate us from the power of sin in our life and the so transformers by the new birth that you and I would have a new spirit and a new life and a whole new perspective so that now we can love God because we have a spirit that is able to love him and to receive his love in return that's why I people who rejected the Lord Jesus Christ have rejected the Father somebody says well you know I believe in God but I don't believe in Jesus forget it or I know God I have relationship with God but forget Jesus Christ he says you can't know the Father till you know him that's why he came he was so intent on you and me knowing him and knowing him as the lover of our soul the lover of our total being he sent his only begotten son to do what to liberate us from the power of sin so that we could experience this awesome love of Almighty God I say again to live your life and never learn to experience the love of God or to love God in return is to live your whole life and miss the purpose of God and that is exactly what many people most people will probably do they think they know how to love God they think well yes I'm sure I I do know how to love God well the truth is they don't and if you should ask them well how do you love God one four-letter word OBEY obey him that is an expression of our love now if my purpose for being alive is to receive his love and to love him in return if I fail to receive his love and if I fail to love him in return then I have lost listen when I think about going through life and never learning to love God what I would have missed and going through life and never being able to receive that love what I would have missed when you think about loving God and and how you and I would love him we miss the purpose of life we miss the blessings of life because to live this life without God personally I don't understand how anybody lives this life without God I mean listen there has got to be this huge empty hole in your soul my friend you can fill it up with a thousand things relationships and money and prestige or whatever it may be you will never be able to fill the gap in your heart that Almighty God created for himself and it is first place in your life everything else is second third fourth thousandth whatever it may be but to live your life apart from God is to live with this big huge emptiness and people are cramming and jamming and seeking and searching anything everything they can to fill up that place and you can't fill up that place that place it is in the image of God and nothing else fits there but God himself thank you for listening to created to be lovers if you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or in touch ministries stop by in touch dot o RG this podcast is a presentation of in touch ministries Atlanta Georgia
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-08-06 03:57:22 / 2023-08-06 04:04:50 / 7