Do you love Me? | SermonIndex

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MaryJane May 3, 2009

Greetings and good morning to everyone

This morning during my devotional time I was thinking on the verse "IF you love me, you will obey Me." I have been seeking to really understand what that means to love Jesus and what that looks like to walk out daily. I am learning that it is so much more then just an assertion with my lips but rather a willingness to lay it all down completely at His feet, to live as if self no longer matters(because it doesn't) to realize that Jesus alone is whom I live for. Seeing Jesus in all His glory, His mercy, His love that He poured out for my sake, how can I not love Him with a heart that is solely devoted to Him, anything less would be a mockery of the sacrifice He made. Anything less then my entire heart devoted to Him daily would be less then what He is deserving of. I read this and thought it was a really good way of stating some of what Father is opening my eyes and heart to.
God bless you all this morning
MJ
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Jesus said, “If you love Me, you’ll obey Me.” There are two ways that you could hear that. You can hear it as a harsh burden: “If you love Me, you’ll OBEY Me!” Or you can hear it as the overflow of a loving relationship, “If you LOVE Me, then you’ll obey Me.”

How do you hear that? If we fall in love with Jesus, then obeying Him is not a burden. Jesus said that His ways and His commandments are not burdensome. If His commands are a burden to you or me, we need to look into our hearts. Do I love Jesus? Am I experiencing His love? Do I appreciate what He’s done for me? Do I appreciate what a high price He paid for me to save me from my sins? “If you love Me, you’ll obey Me”… because of the relationship He has drawn us into through His kindness.

Do you all understand the idea of “falling in love”? Do you understand what people mean when they use that phrase? FALLING in love! (Leans back in chair as if to fall) “If you can see how beautiful and wonderful I am, you will FALL in love with Me.” “If you love Me, you will want to forsake your life and you will want to obey Me.” Amen?

Why do you think they call it “falling in love”? It is because when we fall in love with someone, we abandon ourselves. You men who are married, when you fell in love with your wife, you abandoned yourself for her, didn’t you? In my country, we call that “falling in love.” Jesus has fallen for us that we might fall for Him.

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InTheLight May 3, 2009

A great sermon to go along with your thoughts you have expressed here was preached by Darrell Champlin...

~~[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=16565&commentView=itemComments]~~Love With Shoes On[/url]

In Christ,

Ron

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ginnyrose May 3, 2009

You made an excellent point in your post, MaryJane.

I have a question: if we love Jesus why is obedience so difficult?

Consider: in human relations - when one loves another, there is nothing that person could ask from you that you would not be willing to accommodate. Why the difference with Jesus? If we love someone we serve that person with delight, with pleasure and joy: do we serve Jesus with the same mental enthusiasm?

And if not, why?

(MaryJane, I am not challenging you or your devotion to Jesus...your post just triggered some questions in my own mind.)

Blessings,
ginnyrose

sermonindex May 4, 2009

It is an excellent point MaryJane. I think I feel that His Bride needs to focus on the Love of the Bridegroom. I meet more and more beat up sheep everyday. Understand what I mean. The First Commandment is to Love GOD with all that we are and others as ourselves. He gave that command in Deut 6 first, to people who didn't have the indwelling Holy Spirit - so, what does that say? All I know is that Jesus came and preached the same, but had to give us His Love for us to Love Him with. That puts tears in my eyes. We couldn't love GOD until GOD came to earth and did all that He did and go through all of that so that HE could forgive that we couldn't love Him enough for all of the creation that He gave us to enjoy and all that He promised to those who would follow Him by faith in His Love - with a few exceptions in the O.T. and had to die for that and then send His Own Spirit to teach & equip us to Love or Love Him through Him. I believe this is the chief purpose of man - to love the LORD your GOD with all of your heart, mind, soul and strength & others as yourself because HE's so good and loved us while we were and sometimes still are wretches. He didn't have to give us such a beautiful earth to live on and make Himself available to walk & talk with.
Some of us are like sheep that have been beaten by shepherds, even with the truth. How is that possible? I was thinking today about my cats liking to be brushed, but if I came at them with that implement that's inherently good and beat them with it or scold them during the whole process, they'd be terrified by this good object that they loved. I wonder if some under-shepherds speak to their wives the way they speak to His Sheep. David cared for his father's sheep - under-shepherds care for The Father's Sheep. Sheep are timid by nature and will run over a cliff if scared enough.
I believe that those who represent our Chief Shepherd have done a dreadful thing to His Body. It's normally those who truly sought to please GOD that listen to and read as much from others that they can find - but one harsh under-shepherd too many and the sheep forget that they are loved so much that GOD did it all for them and just asks to be loved - just as we are asking to be loved. How could one not love our Bridegroom?

I just remembered Dr. Blair. He's on radio in many States but he's in Heaven. That old guy only preached for about 12 minutes or less a day but he's socked me in the gut [ha] a few times with beautiful convictions with his soft voice & obvious love flowing through him and he's just one of many that I found that can do that to me, including my own pastor. They mail out his newsletters for free. I just found his internet audio link here - http://gladradio.net/mp3/ & transcripts http://gladradio.net/transcripts.htm. His wife of 69 yrs is still alive and having her 96th Birthday. :-D
Oh he's just one of many, but I guess this has been a time of reckoning for me of late. Talking to so many battered, confused, drifting, weary children of GOD. I know - we either love GOD or we don't, but there are times when others have misrepresented Him or His truth and have scattered the sheep over the cliff, so please forgive my ramblings here today. I believe He's calling His Own out for some quiet time and maybe reading the Gospels again would help many and our prayers for the Saints everywhere.
Thanks for letting me unload here MaryJane and Sisters. GOD Bless you all. We'll have all of Eternity to talk. :-) Amen!

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MaryJane May 4, 2009

Greetings Ginnyrose

Thanks for your reply. I have to tell you that some of the question you brought up here were the very same ones that have been on my heart as well. I think I am seeing that much of the "WHY" part of the question has to do with my own heart and self.

You wrote: If we love someone we serve that person with delight, with pleasure and joy: do we serve Jesus with the same mental enthusiasm?
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I was thinking about this and I was thinking that yes in fact marriage here is a foreshadow of our relationship with the Lord. I am not sure that I fully see this picture just yet but Father is opening my eyes more daily to see and understand. The thing about what you wrote that really struck me was this part:if we love a person we seek to serve that person with joy and delight? I think this struck me because I stumbled Saturday and was in sin. I was really awful and snapping at my husband. I was just so annoyed and frustrated with him that I was at the point that I did not want to even be around him. Then early Sunday I was reading this teaching I shared and I at once felt convicted. I realized that I had been in sin the previous day for the attitude of my heart and for my actions toward my husband. I had to repent. It did not even matter what he had done, or not done, it was I who was at fault. I allowed myself to give into sin. The more I prayed about this the more I realized and saw the one real issue that stops me from loving Jesus and wanting to obey Him in all things is ME!I am that issue! When I allow self to be in control as I did with my husband and I give into that attitude, then my focus is off of Christ and I sin. Left to myself I will always put self first and would end up not truly ever demonstrating the love of Jesus to anyone. So I am seeing that even in this, loving my husband, my children, people around me, and even Jesus, that I must stay close and connected to Him in order to draw on His strength in order to walk out that kind of love and resulting obedience daily. ( This is some of what I have been seeing, hopefully I was able to share that with out being overly confusing:-)

The whole thing with my husband also really opened my eyes to something else, and that was this...there are times when my husband may do things that will effect me in such a way to get me upset, because he is in the same boat as I am.(both of us sinners in need of our Savior) This is one aspect of the foreshadowing I was speaking about, however with Jesus it is beyond that. He asks of us to love Him and to submit ourselves in obedience out of that love for Him and He alone is deserving of that kind of complete love and abandonment because He(unlike myself or my husband) has never done anything offense toward us. He has cared for, loved, sacrificed, and poured Himself out for us in such a way that is truly deserving of that obedience. With my husband, he might at times do things that do cause offense toward me(Not that, that would ever give me reason to sin, just and excuse to according to self) but Jesus has never been anything other then the loving, caring, Savior and therefore completely deserving of my obedience and even yes my complete willing obedience!!

Obedience to Him for me I am learning has everything to do with my sinful attitudes and unwillingness to relinquish self and nothing to do with Jesus asking to much of me, or having to great a demand of me. Obedience to Him and His calling on my daily life is only difficult because I allow self to make it so! One other exciting thing that I am seeing is that loving Jesus is not about me at all...its all about Him!!!(Does that make since?)

I know you were not challenging directly but please do not ever worry about doing so sister, that is what we are to do for one another. Encouraging each other daily to press in and on toward the goal which is a deeper walk with Jesus.

God Bless
Maryjane

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MaryJane May 5, 2009

Greetings everyone
Not sure how many of you are falling Paul Washer on Twitter but his morning post really touched on the heart of what I have been seeing about loving and obeying the Father so I thought I would pass it along here.

Paul Washer quote:
Good morning. The Lord is gracious to allow us to serve Him. It is not a burden, but always a privilege (at least when our hearts are right.
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When our hearts are right with Him it is truly a privileged to be able to call Him Lord and to walk with Him daily in submission to His will. It is a joy to serve Him and to obey Him in all things...if our hearts are right!!!

God Bless
MJ