Love God, Love People
Think about the grace of God for a minute. Everything in life is only because of grace. Remember the mess that your life used to be? God has changed you because of grace which you don’t deserve. The moment you think you deserve grace, God will humble you. He uses the weak to shame those that are strong. The moment we think we can do something by our own power, he shows you that he is in control. Ever have times in your life where you are so close to Jesus, that everything is good. Life is good, your prayers are being answered throughout the day, He gave you everything you don’t deserve, so why no rejoice in his mercy and his grace?
Do you have any doubts about what you are doing? Some people will say that they do have doubts. The reason being, is are we ever 100% sure about absolutely everything? We don’t always hear a voice from heaven. You spend a lot of time in prayer, a lot of time thinking, and reading the Bible? When we look at the Bible, do you look for what makes sense? How people live their lives in the Bible and how to apply it to our lives? When you read the Bible you start becoming more sure and peace with the decision that you have made because that’s what you think that’s what God wants. There will be trouble. There’s no way around it. A lot of times in our lives we make excuses. Do you ever want to do something out of faith but think that you can’t.
James 5:17
17Elias was a man subject to like
passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it
rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months.
Elias was just a man like us. The man who was able to call fire down from heaven. We sometimes look at people of the Bible and think that we cant achieve the things they achieved. The moment you think they are something greater than yourself, you accept a life of mediocrity. Sometimes its easy to look as yourself as someone that God cannot use. We aren’t perfect. That whole passage in Hebrews 11 talks about people who had faults in their lives. But they had faith.
Hebrews 11:6
6But without faith it is
impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is,
and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Their faith was something that could be seen by those around them. There’s times you may be scared in your life, but God has plans for you. When God says he has something for you to do or somewhere to go, do you always listen? Be a person that lives by faith even when the circumstances are uncomfortable. When you were 10, it seems like life is moving at 10mph. When you get to 20, it seems like ou may be going 25mph. The older you get the faster your life is going by. Sometime we wait on our decision. Some of us could be 100 years old before we make a final decision on things. Sometimes we just need to go for it.
When you look at the history of Christianity there are certain periods of time in which we are ashamed of. Some of the wars for example. How embarrassing it is that some Christian fought for slavery back in the day. Forgiveness is through Christ. Its not by any of our works. Christians during the Roman Empire faced such persecution, but they persevered.
There’s periods of church history that we were ashamed of, but then there was also periods of church history in which people stepped up. Back in the day some people tried selling “forgiveness”. Do you ever look back and think that something you were doing was so stupid? But when there is people around you doing the same thing, it adds normalcy to the experience.
I want to challenge you. Think if it ended here, what would the present church age be remembered for? Step back and look at this church age. The church age in which you are part of. Think objectively about it. Some things we don’t see, because we weren’t in it.Presently, we are at consumers in this church age, There is so much information about God. More now, than ever before. Sometimes, we can get so picky. “I want this kind of music” “I want this kind of preacher” “I want this kind of Sunday School” We are picky about church nowadays. Nobody nowadays takes any disciples. We kind of go about our business by ourselves. We just want more and more out of the church. The good news, is that the story continues. I believe that God is taking us out of this phase. Some people are moving out from the word of God, but a lot are also growing in the word of God.
When you try to get people to love each other. It doesn’t really work. But when you have those people and have a mission to complete. You team up and tackle the mission. You create a bond with other individuals. Think of a sports team. You get really close as a sports team. When you join a team, its almost ever about becoming friends with other people.
Look at the early church. They were being ostracized. As they were trying to create disciples, there was unity that was created between them. We all should be co-laborers in a sense. Sometimes we ask God to be with us when we sing or preach. But think of it like God is throwing the party, and he is inviting us to be a part of it. The way the world is going, its not hard to believe that what pastors do in a public forum will be called as performing a hate crime. Look at history, we had these communists revolutions in China and Russia. In Russia, everything was built around the cathedrals and the priests. The moment that the government took these away, the people didn’t know what to do, and the church died out. The same thing happened in China. Except the pastors empowered those and taught them how to lead people to God. This persecuted church went from 2 million believers to approximately 80 millions believers. Are you making disciples and empowering them?
Sometimes we just need to go back to the basics. Where the church made tremendous mistakes in the past, we elevate things we shouldn’t.
Matthew 22:36-40
36Master, which is the great
commandment in the law? 37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt
love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy mind. 38This
is the first and great commandment. 39And the second is like unto it,
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40On these two commandments hang
all the law and the prophets.
If we want just simplify things. All the laws hang on these 2 laws. Is your relationship with God really yours? If your family says that they are done pursuing God. Would you continue to pursue after Gods own heart? Would you tell them that you love God more than you love them? You need to know that your relationship with God is really yours. Because one day it will be you standing alone before God. It is important that your relationship with God is strictly yours.
The second commandment. Love your neighbor as yourself. When you went to church last time, did you think of anyone other than yourself? Did you go in as a love of people? As you wanting to bring an encouraging word to someone today. When people love you in a supernatural way, its an awesome feeling. Have faith that God can use you. You are a normal human being just like Elias. God can use you. He has great things in store for your life. Just make sure that you love him! There may be some of you that want to be like this. That want to be a lover of God, or a love of people, but right now, that’s just not me. If you would like prayer for this matter, please let us know.