Here's Pastor Alan Wright with Today's Blessing: a Biblical Faith-Filled Vision. for your life. I bless the ruins of your life. to become the hill upon which your tomorrow is built, higher and better. Yesterday's over.
But the rubble of your past need not be wasted. This is what the Lord says, Jeremiah. I will restore the fortunes of Jacob's tents. and have compassion on his dwellings. The city will be rebuilt on her ruins.
Jeremiah 30, 18. God is not blind to your losses. He is not deaf to your cries. He is moved with unquenchable compassion on your behalf. He is a restorer.
a master renovator. Who can incorporate every broken fragment of yesteryear into the foundation of a new. higher place for you to dwell. Like the ancient cities rebuilt upon the ruins of former days. Your adversities Have become clay in God's hands.
He is molding a mountain. out of your mistakes.
So you can live atop it. A whole new Perspective. Pastor, author, and Bible teacher Alan Wright. When we allow the Holy Spirit to convey to us the felt affection of Christ upon our heart, it is because we have come to know the fullness and perfect gift that God has given to us in Christ. He loved you and He came for you because He loves you.
And he always will. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt. Excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, The Untroubled Heart, as presented at Renolda Church in North Carolina.
If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries.
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More on this later in the program. But right now. Let's get started with today's teaching. Here is Pastor Alan Wright. You receive from God perfect love.
And once you've even tasted of it, you just want it. You just relish it. You can become like David in Psalm 63: Oh God, your steadfast love, Chesid. is better than life. My lips will praise you.
I think you can come to that place where you realize his love. That perfect love. is better than life itself. You can have life and not have love, and you've got nothing. And you've got love.
And everything that we call life is missing, you would still have everything. You'll have the love of God forever. Love is better than anything that you could ever find in this world. If you have love. From God, then you have no fear and you have security instead.
With love, then you have peace. With love, you have something to give to others. You become set free from self-absorption. This is What John says about the encounter, the experience of such love, he says at verse 16, so we've come to know. And to believe the love that God has for us.
We abide in this love. It is an inseparable connection and attachment that he's talking about. to know and to believe. It means to know experientially and trust fully. That's the nature of the love of God.
You can know his love. And you can trust and his love. and to really relish His love is to want to put the full balance of your life. with all that is good and all that's messed up. And Put yourself fully into the loving arms of God with 100% trust in that love.
It's like I heard many years ago someone say, it's like a tightrope walker who stretches a wire between two downtown buildings five stories up. A crowd gathers beneath. He is a loudspeaker and he says, How many of you believe I can walk across to the other side? They say, We believe, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They cheer, and he walks across to the other side.
And over on the other building, rooftop, he has a wheelbarrow, and he shouts down. He says, How many of you believe I could push the wheelbarrow across to the other side? They said, Yeah, go for it. We believe you. And so he takes the wheelbarrow and he pushes it on that tightrope across.
To the other side. And then for his finale, he takes his microphone and he says: How many of you believe I could actually take a person, put them in the wheelbarrow, and push it across to the other side? And they said, yeah, yeah, we believe it. He said, okay, one of you believers, come get in the wheelbarrow. The crowd, you know, disperses.
A lot of times we say, we believe. But it is a different thing, isn't it, to put the full balance of your life into a trusting relationship. That's when you know you believe. To believe. to know and to believe.
God loves you. This is the desire of God. In real sense, Christian maturity. is just growing in the knowledge and trust. And the love of God.
It's the difference between Just thinking that God loves you and and knowing his love. Jonathan Edwards, the great awakening preacher, said there's a difference between believing that God's holy and gracious. and having a new sense on the heart. of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. The difference between Believing that God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is as different as having a rational belief.
That honey is sweet and having the actual sense of its Sweetness. God wants It doesn't Doesn't mean that we go on emotions and feelings, we go on the truth. But God wants you to Have a sense of his affection on your heart.
So that it's not something that's just limited to theoretical. are intellectual. It's something that you know when you're loved. We'd like to pray for you today to know that love. And if you want to Receive the love of God.
It seems to me... That because the great hindrance To trusting in love is the concern of that 1% of condition. The concern that the love in the end might not be fully trustworthy. It would seem therefore to trust the love of God that the great essential thing is that you remove any shadow of doubt. About the totality, the teleos, the perfection of the love of God.
And this is why Understanding the fullness and sufficiency of the gift of God in Christ to you. is so vital and I talk about it all the time. Hebrews 10.1 again. For since the law has but a shadow of the good things to come instead of the true form of these realities, And he's talking in this context. the laws concerning bringing sacrifices to the temple, that temporarily atoned and covered for sin.
But he said It can never, by those sacrifices that are continually offered every year, make perfect those who draw near. That's Alan Wright. And we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears.
You've believed it in your mind.
Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you, and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like.
For any woman who has searched for true love, What you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of The Five Love Languages, says, the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy his embrace, revel in his love. After all, it's a match made in heaven.
It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries.
Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again.
is Alan Wright. And what he's saying is that As long as we are under that system of thought. the old covenant. The law-based way of thinking. That I have to bring some sort of sacrifice to God in order to measure up.
to make up for my sin. He's just The writer of Hebrews is being very logical here and saying, The reason those sacrifices had to keep being offered year after year after year is because they never. perfected. They never brought to perfection the atoning work.
Someone has said, we live in works mentality like a fish lives in water. That's why it's hard to detect. We just swim in it. We swim in an environment that says Do better and you'll be more loved.
So it's very hard to detect. What the true love of God would be. But if your life is built on any sort of law-based ideology, It'll lead either to a dogged pursuit of being better in order to be accepted. or it will lead in the opposite direction. To a rejection of any sense of right and wrong, because you know you could never keep it anyway.
And so it becomes rebellion against it.
So you might say that they're Yeah. a path of religion and there's a path of rebellion. But what God invites us into is a love relationship. I think of it this way: religion says, I'll be fulfilled by keeping the rules, and rebellion says, I'll be fulfilled by breaking the rules. But what a relationship with God in perfect love says, I'll be fulfilled by His perfect love.
Your steadfast love is better than life. Or maybe you think of it this way: religion says, accept me, because I don't sin as much as other people do. And rebellion says, accept me because it's not really sin. But in a relationship with God, what we say is, forgive my sin. and pride.
Accept me through the perfect love that's been given to me in Christ. That's how I will know that I'm in the beloved.
So here's how to receive the love of God. Instead of religion or rebellion, You choose relationship with God. You find yourself thinking about all that God has done to Make you his child. you think much of the perfect love of God. And you let that love be perfect.
Let his love be perfect. It is perfect. Let it be that to you. Don't don't let your part live by even 1% of law and moralism and perfectionism.
so that you could experience the perfect love of God. purge your thinking. And let your heart be purged of that 1% of law that is so joy-stifling. and so fear inducing with all of its demands. And this is love, not that we love God, John says.
But he loved us. And he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. It's a beautiful word. Propitiation Doesn't just mean that he has forgiven you. It means that he has also made it through the cross and resurrection of Jesus such that he's favorable towards you.
He's propitious towards you. He's the propitiation for our sins. Because he didn't just take the penalty due our sins. but He credited to us His righteousness. And God therefore is saying, I'm guaranteeing to you, child of God.
that I look upon you favorably. Always favorably. By this Verse 17, love is perfected with us that we may have confidence. For the day of judgment What he's saying is, he wants us to have 100% confidence in the love of God towards us. Through the work, the propitious work of Jesus Christ.
So that when you think about the coming of Jesus, or you think about the day in which you would come before the judgment throne, that you would have only delight in your thought about that. Only delight. Full confidence. It's just Loves you so much. And it's going to be a day of great joy to see him face to face.
Why? Because as he is, so also are we in this world. This is so remarkable that it bends the mind and is absolutely breathtaking to even dare to say it. But what he's saying is that in the way that Jesus Is seen by the Father that the Son of God. Utterly sinless and triumphant is viewed by the Father that you who have been covered by the propitious work of Jesus, you who have been forgiven, have been forgiven so fully that there's no more sin in God's eyes when he looks upon you, and that he looks upon you as if you had lived Jesus' meritorious life.
It is to say that God, the Father, looks upon you in the same way that he looks upon his only begotten Son. God loves you. Every bit as much as Father and Son and Holy Spirit love one another. Wow. We often think of God dying on the cross as if we were in some predicament.
And we'd sin, and Justice says someone needs to pay for it. But there's something more than that. There is the longing of God for you. There is the relationship God has always wanted with you. And so God has taken it all upon himself.
to make it possible. I was thinking of why what God's done and being. Propitious towards us is so much more than what any earthly scenario we could imagine. It means like if you would imagine a mother walking into a courtroom sobbing because her guilty son had been convicted of murder and given the death penalty, and the mother says in her love, let me die in his place. And the judge agrees for the son to go free, and the mother dies.
But this doesn't describe our gospel because the mother's not sinless. She may be a fine woman, but she's not sinless. And the mother's not infinitely glorious, deserving of infinite and unending blessing and praise. And what's different is the mother doesn't actually take away the sin of her son. She cannot and will not be able to Take into her being the sin and the shame of her son.
She stands in for him. She sits in the seat of execution on behalf, but she's still her own person. But Jesus became our sin, the Bible said. The sinless one became our sin.
So it's removed from us. When the mother died in that Illustration: There's no actual power in her shed blood, no transformation, no miraculous event that took place. But with Jesus, when he died on your behalf, the veil of the temple was torn asunder. The earth shook. Dead people began coming back to life because an actual cosmic event had taken place.
His blood, his sacrifice, erased sin, reversed a curse. The mother's death didn't do that. And the mother didn't transfer to her son her own merits or glory. She herself was sinful, though not her murderer. She might have been deemed of great.
Honor, but she was no sinless person. Only Christ has been sinless, and therefore only Christ could give to you the merits of His own life. And so it is that when we allow the Holy Spirit to convey to us the felt affection of Christ upon our heart, it is because we have come to know the fullness and perfect gift that God has given to us in Christ. He loved you and He came for you because He loves you. And he always will.
So God wants to connect to your heart. And let there be A kind of transfer. a connecting point. of the calm of his very heart, Because Jesus knew the perfect love of the Father He's making that offer. and saying the Holy Spirit will convey this to you.
It's something in the end that we need the power of the Holy Spirit to help us with if we're going to receive this love. Paul said in Ephesians 3, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father. from whom every family in heaven on earth is named. that according to the riches of his glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power. Dunamis.
You need the dynamic power of the Holy Spirit in your inner being, he says. And he's praying that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That you being rooted and grounded in love. Agape. may have strength To comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height.
and depth. and to know the love of Christ. that surpasses knowledge. that you may be filled with all the fullness. of God.
that you would have strength in your inner being. Uh it takes a power from on high. For you to know this love. Because everything's warring against it. All the messages that we've heard in our lives, all the shame, all of the conditional love.
All of that is warring against it in our heart. And so Paul prays. May you have the strength in your inner being, the dunamis. Power of the Holy Spirit. to enable you to Receive The infinite perfect love.
Of God. This is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. It is the def the definitive pathway. to peace. It is the way that love Mm-hmm.
Perfect love. casts out fear. And that's the gospel. Pastor Alan Wright, and today's good news message. Perfect love casts out fear.
It's in our greater series called The Untroubled Heart, and I encourage you to stay around. Pastor Alan is back with us here in the studio, sharing a parting good news thought for the day. Just for you. Unlock the power of blessing your life. Discover God's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for Alan Wright's free daily blessing.
If you wanna fill your heart with grace and encouragement, get Alan Wright's daily blessing. It's free and just to click away at pastorallen.org. God's love. You've heard about it with your ears. You've believed it in your mind.
Now experience it in your heart with Alan Wright's beloved book, Lover of My Soul. The Bible is a love story from beginning to end. You are the spiritual bride of Christ, the perfect bridegroom. The Bible tells about a God who has gone to unimaginable lengths to woo you, to win you, and to walk with you hand in hand. For any man who has fallen in love with a woman, you've tasted the sweetness of what God's love for you is like.
For any woman who has searched for true love, What you long for can only be found fully in God. Gary Chapman, renowned author of The Five Love Languages, says, the incredible reality that God pursues us in love comes to life in Lover of My Soul. Ancient biblical accounts explode in the heart. Accept Christ's proposal, enjoy His embrace, revel in His love. After all, it's a match made in heaven.
It's Lover of My Soul by Alan Wright. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support. When you give today, we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allan Wright Ministries.
Call us at eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. That's eight seven seven five four four forty eight sixty. Or come to our website, pastorallen.org. Back here now with Pastor Alan and today's good news message, perfect love cast out fear. And in this greater series, it really has a theme of overcoming anxiety.
Anxiety, fear, insecurity, and angst are just different expressions of the same root. of a troubled heart. That's why I love what Jesus. I mean, he's in the final discourse, the upper room discourse, the most intimate conversation that he would have with the disciples on the very eve of his own crucifixion. And he starts and he says, This is what I want you to understand.
I want you to have my peace. And I just want to say to all of our listeners, if you, you know, to the extent that you've tasted of it, you know it is sweet and you want to savor it and have more of such peace. And to others, you may be listening and going, I just. I long for that. I don't even know if I know what that is.
And here is the key, if there's any key, and this is this. God loves you perfectly. And the more that we're able to apprehend, understand, receive, and walk in it, the last fear we're going to have. Thanks for listening today. Visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-577-1.
544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. If you only caught part of today's teaching, not only can you listen again online, but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free. Find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org.
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