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Have you ever given yourself completely to something or someone?
Maybe a person like a girlfriend or boyfriend? Completely surrendering your heart to them, making yourself vulnerable yet completely enraptured in the experience? Maybe in this process you spent hours on the phone? Sometimes not even talking just sitting there quietly.
Maybe it was a goal like winning a game or a state championship. All your energy focused on one thing, winning that game or title. Spending countless hours in a gym or on a field preparing.
Maybe you have career goals and objectives and you spend countless hours studying, preparing individually and corporately in meetings with teams of people. You do all this because of the goal the objective, the idea of a better tomorrow.
What causes us to hold back from complete and utter abandonment when trying to know someone or achieve something?
Generally it’s fear of loss or fear of failure.
There’s a certain “safety” in not taking sides, not choosing to go for it. Just being a fan and not getting into the game of life.
Sometimes it’s an inability to see the benefits of such extreme commitment to a person or cause.
I believe that many people are in this category today.
I was awakened Thursday morning with today’s message and it’s a very simple one but extremely important because it’s a core value of God’s and should thus be a core value for his people.
God wants us to abandon ourselves to Him.
Jeremiah 24:7
And I will give them a heart to know (recognize, understand, and be acquainted with) Me, that I am the Lord; and they will be My people, and I will be their God, for they will return to Me with their whole heart.
Deuteronomy 4:29
But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul.
People who don’t “find” God don’t seek him with all their heart. They don’t step out into the risky environment of love and trust.
For various reasons they shrink back from true emotional commitment to God.
Deuteronomy 6:5
Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
This scripture means total emotional attachment to God. This emotional attachment leads to very practical works.
1 John 3:18
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
Deuteronomy 10:12
And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
Deuteronomy 11:13-16
13 So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul- 14 then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. 15 I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. 16 Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them.
Love for God defined as willful obedience.
Love for God results in God providing for your natural needs.
John 14:15
"If you love me, you will obey what I command.
John 14:21
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."
The Benefits
When Jesus Shows Himself to you remember what he says to his closest followers.
Luke 10:24
For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it."
False Idols are idols of the heart
Loving God is more powerful than prophetic utterances or miracles
Deuteronomy 13:1-3
1 If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, 2 and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, "Let us follow other gods" (gods you have not known) "and let us worship them," 3 you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul.
2 Thessalonians 2:9,10
9The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.
Joshua 22:5
But be very careful to keep the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you: to love the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to obey his commands, to hold fast to him and to serve him with all your heart and all your soul."
Why don’t people Surrender their Hearts?
- Lack of information
- They love their idol(s).
- Fear of loss or lack of trust in God
Hosea 4:6
my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
Matthew 16:18
And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
2. Idol worship
Anything that takes the place of Jesus Christ in the heart of a man.
Fear of Man placing the opinions of man over the opinions of God
Tribulation because of the Word
Worry and Anxiety
Lust – Sexual, financial,
Others
3. Fear of Loss or Lack of Trust
Psalm 19:7
The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul. The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
Psalm 33:4
For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all he does.
This subject on loving God is like prayer and practice
It can never hurt you to do a little more.
Ask God to search you like David did in Psalm 51
Maybe you would say that I’ve given everything and my heart is completely his.
Then your prayer should be, “Lord, give me a bigger heart.”
Help us to Love you the way you loved us. Teach us and guide us to be a people that you would be proud to call your people. The holy spotless Bride of Christ, eagerly awaiting you to come and sweep us off our feet.
Jubilee Family Church
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