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Monday, January 26, 2009

Do Love Him?

The Lord's Day morning service was really good and we had 2 first time visitors. It is a blessing and encouragement to our folks to see visitors each week. Then on Sunday night the dear folks of our church gave Jane and me a card for our anniversary with a check for $200 and that will pay for Jane's plane ticket to NY to get Holly in Feb. What a blessing the people have been to us. How can we not love people who are so kind?

My AM message:
Someone asked R.A. Torrey what the greatest sin that a person could commit. Mr. Torrey answered, “The greatest sin that anyone could commit would be to break the greatest commandment.” Mat 22:37-40. 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.This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Mat 22:37 takes in the first four commandments of the Ten Commandments. Man’s relationship toward God. If we love God with all of our heart then we will not jeopardize the first four commands.
Mat 22:40 “Love thy neighbor” is dealing with the last six commandments. Man’s relationship with man. If we love man like we should we won’t kill him. We won’t lie about him. We won’t steal from him. We won’t covet his possessions.

I. DO YOU LOVE THE LORD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, SOUL, AND MIND?

What Does It Mean To Love Him With All Of Your Heart?
To love God is not to have good feelings about Him. True love involves the will as well as the heart. Where there is love, there will be service and obedience. Love is the basis for obedience.
Joh 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Joh 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
Joh 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
Prov 4:23 "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."

A. Heart - Emotion.
The heart is where praise comes from. We worship with our heart. You will do what your heart wants to do. Your heart controls your emotions. That’s why we are to keep it with “all diligence”. Prov 23:26 "My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways." If we love Him with our heart our heart will find ways to praise Him. If we love Him with our heart our heart will come up with the proper procedure for worshipping Him. If love for God motivates our heart we will obey His commands.

B. Soul - Spiritual. Holiness. Desire to serve. Faith. “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” When one gets saved then there becomes a developing program of faith. Faith to follow God and do what He commands.

C. Mind - Intellectual. Knowledge. We train our mind. The mind is programmed to follow the word of God, or it will follow the heart. If it follows the heart, bad things happen. If it follows the Word of God, good things happen.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is good. I do believe a Christian could get by with that verse alone as His guide if nothing else was accessible. That is, NT living of the OT concepts. We are not under the law because we live by a "new and living way", don't we? I would say the conduct of the NT believer allowing this Scripture, you have cited, to guide him or her would be far more in harmony with the spirit of the law.

Thanks for the good thoughts.

Anonymous said...

Genuine faith defined. Great job Bro. Dave!