ONE LOVE
The Guide to Experiencing Love
The word last week was entitled Law & Order, it was on how God gave us the law so we could have order. The law was not given to keep us from something, but so we could experience more of something. The law was given out of love. God is love and He created us to know His love, sin separated us from His love, but God planed a way of redemption, a way to join us back together. He chose Abraham in which through his offspring would come the nation of Israel in which His plan would be orchestrated through. God gave Moses the Ten Commandments to teach Israel how to love God and love each other (Mt. 22:35-40). Conflict, hurt, pain, stress, worry, bitterness all come from broken relationships. The Ten Commandments are a guideline to being at peace with God and mankind. And as we see the Ten Commandments are just a mere guide, they are not the source of fulfillment. In our sinful nature they are impossible to fulfill, and that is why they were given us, so we could see our need for Jesus Christ, accept Him and through His spirit within us overcome our sinful nature and truly live at peace with God and man.
Rom 7:22-:8:4 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
The first commandment God gives is that He must be our One Love, there can be no other but Him. God will not be shared, He must be all or nothing. Sin is really putting anything above God or doing anything apart from God. God is a jealous God, He made us for Himself, and He will punish us for our sins to the third and fourth generation.
One Love
Exo 20:1-5 GOD spoke all these words: I am GOD, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of a life of slavery. No other gods, only me. No carved gods of any size, shape, orform of anything whatever, whether of things that fly or walk or swim. Don't bow down to them and don't serve them because I am GOD, your God, and I'm a most jealous God, punishing the children for any sins their parents pass on to them to the third, and yes, even to the fourth generation of those who hate me.
Married to the Lamb
Salvation is much like marriage, it is a covenant agreed upon by two people, who therefore become joined together as one. When one gets married their life is no longer there own, they now share their life with another, when one chooses to break that covenant, and share there life with others they are committing adultery and who they are in covenant with has the legal right to divorce them. Likewise, with God we commit spiritual adultery when we share our love with others. We are to only love God and only that which He has given us, but the gifts He has given us, family, friends, job, material possessions, spiritual gifts etc., must never take the place of the giver.
Mat 10:34-37 "Don't think that I came to bring peace to earth. I didn't come to bring peace but conflict. I came to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A person's enemies will be the members of his own family. "The person who loves his father or mother more than me does not deserve to be my disciple. The person who loves a son or daughter more than me does not deserve to be my disciple.
It is easy to pick up when two people are near divorce, they lack intimacy, easily offended, spend little time together, they put their focus and attention elsewhere. I believe the church in America has lost it's first love. We have taken the blessings that come from God and placed them above Him just as the prodigal son. The ratio of divorce in America is like 50-60% and it is only slightly less for Christian marriages. The relationships we have with one another are a mere reflection of the relationship we have with God.
Return to our First Love
Rev 2:4-5 "But you walked away from your first love--why? What's going on with you, anyway? Do you have any idea how far you've fallen? A Lucifer fall! "Turn back! Recover your dear early love. No time to waste, for I'm well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle.
The hardest thing in a struggling marriage is for one another to admit where they went wrong and apologize. God is awaiting with open arms for us to repent and return to Him. To once again live our life unto Him, to put Him first above all things. If we don't return things will grow darker, for we are apart from His protection, His plan, and we give the enemy the right to come in. Church of America lets return to our first love!