LOOKING FOR JOY IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES Part 1

“I will go to the altar of God,   to God my exceeding joy." Psalm 43:5 ESV

What gives you your greatest joy? A vacation on a tropical island? A problem free life? Playing with your kids? Achieving some goal that you set? A promotion at work?  Purchasing a new car, or a IPhone? Being highly regarded by others? Helping someone in need? A win by your favorite team? Being physically healthy? The reason I ask this question is not just because I think every person that reads this cares about them, but also because this questions is one of the rock bottom concerns of the Bible. The Psalmist spoke of his highest joy when he says, “I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy,”

Can you say that?

The Psalmist in the midst of trouble and sorrow was God centered when he says, “I will go to the altar of God,   to God my exceeding joy, (ESV); to God, my joy and my delight (NIV); or very literally from the Hebrew, “God, the gladness of my rejoicing."

Here King David is threatened by enemies and feeling danger from his adversaries, and yet he knows that the ultimate battle of his life is not the defeat of his enemies, it is not escaping natural catastrophe; it is not surviving the trials and difficulties of life. The ultimate battle is: Will God be his exceeding joy? Will God be the gladness at the heart of all his joys?

God cannot be the center of your life, heart, and mind if He is not the center of your joy. This means that a primary purpose of your life is the cultivation of that joy.  I write this to declare war on any kind of Christianity that is not God centered and joy producing. I am tenaciously fighting against a culture of religion and church that tells you to embrace God for all the wrong reasons and as a result produces the wrong joy by promising God is going to bring you happiness in anything less than Him. I am fighting against a shallow, mile wide, inch deep kind of Christianity that succeeds and appeals in times of safety, ease health, wealth, comfort, and security but is empty and worthless in times of trials, difficulty, and adversity.

The Old Testament says that “In God’s presence there is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures evermore.” (Psalm 16:11). “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.”(Psalm 144:15). We are commanded to "delight ourselves in the Lord" (Psalm 37:4) and "to serve the Lord with gladness" (Psalm 100:2). Jesus commands us, "Rejoice and leap for joy for your reward is great in heaven" (Luke 6:23), and he tells us, "These things I have spoken to you that my joy might be in you and your joy might be full" (John 15:11). The apostle Paul commands us, "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice" (Philippians 4:4). He tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is joy (Galatians 5:22).

Christian joy is not the mere product of the human spirit in response to pleasant circumstances. It is the by product, or fruit, of God's Spirit, and it is not just a human joy; it is the very joy of Christ fulfilled in us.

All of these descriptions of joy and all of these demands that we rejoice are astonishing for so many reasons that it would take years to unfold all of their surprising implications. In other words, the demand to be happy in God is neither marginal nor superfluous. It is a shocking wake up call for people who are finding happiness in all the wrong places.

God commands us to be joyful because our joy honors Him and who He is in our lives. In 1 Corinthians 10:31, we are called to do everything for the glory of God. That is make much of God in everything that you do. The way to make much of God is by getting happy in Him. You cannot honor God as He so richly deserves to be honored unless He is the joy of your joy. Jonathan Edwards, who understood this as well as any Christian that I’ve ever read wrote: "The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted… God is glorified not only by His glory's being seen, but by its being rejoiced in.”

Every day there is a battle for joy -that is, the battle to obey in the great command of Psalm 37:4, "delight in the Lord". The battle is to delight in God above all other things.The battle is to be happy and satisfied in God above all competing sources of happiness and satisfaction in the universe. It is a battle of cosmic proportions according to Ephesians 6:10-19. The primary scheme of the devil is to deceive humans into embracing other things as more satisfying and happiness bringing than all that God is for them in Jesus. It is the main battle in the universe and makes all other human warfare look small and insignificant by comparison.

What does joy look like? What does it mean to delight in God? The scriptures paint a clear picture for us in order to see joy in action? I will describe one aspect this week and continue next week.

First, Joy is a key component of conversion   One of my favorite sayings of Jesus about joy we find in His wonderful parable  in Matthew 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”  

This is one of the great descriptions of true conversion. The arrival of Jesus in a life is like discovering a billion dollars in a bag in a field and you know if you buy the field, you get the bag. You think, “I have somehow, someway got to get this field before anybody else gets it. So the man covers it over and then from joy or for joy (literally in the Greek) sold everything he had.   Do you see what happens? He sells everything he had, everything. What emotions would you feel as you sold all your goods?  Weeping, sorrow, regret, anxiety, fear, or depression? What emotions did this man feel as he sold all his goods? JOY! It is as if he was in a happy mindset and thought "I must sell everything". Nothing compared to the value of the field. All that this man once held dear, all he once thought important, all that he once valued, all that he once had worked so hard to attain – all this he now considers rubbish compared to the tremendous worth of the treasure in the field. So he pursued his greatest joy by selling all his possessions and buying the field. When someone becomes a Christian, he values Jesus Christ more than everything else. Jesus Christ is the great treasure, and the joy of knowing Him far outweighs the cost of any sacrifice, of any loss.

Dear reader, to be truly saved is to have your eyes open to the value of Jesus. Paul says it clearly in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them (it means from getting saved) from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” 

People without Jesus do not find their supreme joy in Him. This is because they are blind to Him and dead to Him and His surpassing worth. Verse 6 describes what happens when people see the worth of Jesus.

God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," has shone in our hearts to give (says the same thing he said in verse 4 just changes the vocabulary) to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

What does it mean to be saved? People get saved when the light goes on in their heart and life comes to their soul and Jesus becomes pure pleasure and joy to them. When they one looked at the cross as foolishness or a stumbling block, now everything changes.It means eyes go open and the foolishness of the cross becomes wisdom and power. You were looking at Jesus and He was boring. Why would I want to go worship Him? I have the surf, television, golf, fishing, booze, money, girls, and all the foolish, vain, and empty things we once called living.  Then suddenly, late at night, light floods the heart and the cross is majestic. It was the sweetest thing I ever heard when I was a young man at the age of 21.

So are you saved? Has Jesus become the light which is the joy of all your joys? Augustine describes his own conversion this way,How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose! . . . You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure." Augustine 386 A.D. The main battle of your life is joy in God. It is not having a good marriage, being successful, your kids, and your physical health. The main battle is keeping God as your treasure and the source of your greatest joy. Brothers and sisters, pursuing joy in God is not something one may do halfheartedly if he realizes whom he is pursuing and what is at stake.

To be continued next week...

Pastor Bill

THE KINGDOM OF ME

"But seek first the kingdom of God." Matthew 6:33

"For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised." 2 Corinthians 5;14-15

There are two ways to live life according to the apostle Paul:
To live for myself
To live for Jesus

Which way do you live? We always live in the service of one of two kingdoms. We live in the service of the small, personal happiness, self serving, self centered, sinful agenda of the kingdom of ME, or we live in the service of the huge, God honoring, true happiness bringing, eternally planned destiny agenda of the kingdom of GOD.

When we live for the kingdom of ME , our desires, motives, decisions, thoughts, plans, actions, and words are all directed by selfish personal desires. We know what we want, where we want it, why we want it, how we want it, when we want it, and who we would prefer to deliver it. We know what we want from people and how to get it from them. We seek to surround ourselves with people who will serve our kingdom purposes.

We are drawn to order, predictability, comfort, ease, pleasure, appreciation, fun, and personal happiness. These become the controlling wants of our lives and take precedent over what God wants. We struggle with God's plans for us because often times in reality, we don't really want what God wants. I sometimes say, we love God and have a wonderful plan for His life. We want what we want and we want Him to deliver it.

Most of my frustrations, disappointments, discouragements, and anger in my life has virtually nothing to do with the kingdom of GOD and everything to do with the kingdom of ME. I wish that I could say my heart burns with sole allegiance to the plans, purposes, calling, and advancement of God's kingdom, but frequently my zeal is for the plans, purposes, calling,and advancement of the kingdom of ME.    Oh how often I am hurt, angry, frustrated, or disappointed with God and others because they have broken the laws of the kingdom of ME. God is not doing what I want Him to do. People are not fulfilling my expectations. This causes me to work hard to get God and others reigned back into serving my needs, wants, and feelings.   thank God for His patient, merciful, loving, grace is all I have to say! In spite of my continuous quest to maintain and expand the kingdom of ME, God's purpose is to expose and free me from my bondage to me. George Mueller used to say that "the end of self is the beginning of God." God desires us to bring us to the end of ourselves so that we find true north, the place where we begin finding our identity, meaning, joy, and satisfaction only in Him. He wants us to give up, surrender, let ho, submit, abandon our dreams, plans, and purposes. He wants us to see the futility of our quest to advance the kingdom of me and to try to manipulate others into our service and agenda.   God wants to lift us out of the putrid cesspools and narrow confines of the kingdom of ME and free us to dwell in the refreshing oceans and wide open spaces of the kingdom of God.  

So many battles in my life are the result of me not liking what God is doing in my life. In the kingdom of ME I want it easy. I want health, wealth, prosperity, safety, ease, comfort, and security. I do not want pain and suffering. I would rather have that kind of life than a God honoring one. So my greatest battles are often times with the Lord and our conflicting kingdoms. I bring Him into the court of the kingdom of ME and find Him guilty of being unloving and unwise. I don't agree with His plan. I critique His will. I disdain his wisdom. I question His love. I question if His kingdom is worth embracing more than the kingdom of ME.

 Who's kingdom shapes your life? Who's kingdom defines your dreams and goals and plans? What satisfies your soul? What makes you happy? Could it be that any frustration, anger, or impatience you are experiencing with God and others reveals how zealously committed you are to the kingdom of ME? Could it be that right now in all of your trials and difficulties both relationally and circumstantially that God is really on a rescue mission for you, and that is to rescue you from you? Could it be that He is freeing you from your foolish kingdom of ME and bringing  you His beautiful, eternal, soul satisfying, heart expanding, joy producing eternal kingdom instead?

Paul Tripp writes,

The biggest protection against the kingdom of self is not a set of reformative defensive strategies. It's a heart so blown away by the right-here, right-now glories of the grace of Jesus Christ that you're not easily seduced by the lesser temporary glories of that claustrophobic kingdom of self. (Or as I call it, the kingdom of ME.)"

May you seek first the kingdom of God and may you begin praying what Jesus your king taught you to pray, "Father...let Your kingdom come, your will be done right now, right here in my life as it is in heaven.AMEN!".

Longing for his kingdom and rejecting earnestly the false kingdom of ME,
Pastor Bill

"DO NOT BE AFRAID"

The most frequent of all God's commands is "DO NO BE AFRAID". It is given over 300 times in the bible.

After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward." (Genesis 15:1)

God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there." (Genesis 21:17)

That night the LORD appeared to him and said, "I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you." (Genesis . 26:24)

"I am God, the God of your father," he said. "Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation there." (Genesis 46:3)

The LORD said to Moses, "Do not be afraid of him, for I have handed him over to you, with his whole army and his land." (Numbers 21:34)

The angel of the LORD said to Elijah, "Go down with him; do not be afraid of him." (2 Kings 1:15)

He said: "Listen, King Jehoshaphat and all who live in Judah and Jerusalem! This is what the LORD says to you: Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God's.'" (2 Chronicles. 20:15)

Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood—because of the fierce anger of Rezin and Aram and of the son of Remaliah. (Isaiah 7:4)

"Do not be afraid, 0 worm Jacob, 0 little Israel, for I myself will help you," declares the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. (Isaiah 41:14)

Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one. (Isaiah 44:8)

Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. (Isaiah 54:4)

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. (Matthew 10:28)

But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." (Matthew 14:27)

Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me." (Matthew 28:10)

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27)
This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all of God's commandments to "be not afraid". Part of my problem when I hear God speak this to me is that I treat His command as if He is like some of the glib, well meaning people I have known. How many times have people casually said to you "its all going to be okay, don't worry." It virtually never helps alleviate my fears. Other people often time tell us not to be afraid because they really don't want have to hear about our fears. Or they just say it as a polite response to our troubles. Maybe they don't know what to say, so they say this. Maybe our troubles seem so trite and trivial to them, that this is their way of trying to help us to minimize the fear or worry that we feel.

But when God say "do not be afraid", I think He is both close to my troubles and fears as well as He cares about all of my troubles and fears. I think that He really cares about my fears by the very fact that He so repeatedly commands me not to fear. He knows that our fears and anxieties are real to us.

No, the words "do not be afraid" are the words of our creator, our savior, our king, and our sovereign, loving, merciful, all knowing, all present God. These are the words of one who can match what He says with what He is going to do about what He says. He loves us, is powerful, has authority and therefore, his words are effective in helping us when we are fearful or anxious.

DO NOT BE AFRAID' says something about God to us. It is not saying that God is just an exalted king who 300 times gives an edict to not be afraid (even though He could). It is telling us...

1.How lovely God really is. He knows the concerns of us and commands things that are always in our best interest. That is why we could call the command "do not be afraid" a sweet command.

2.How happy God is to alleviate our fears
Jesus says, "Fear not, little flock, for it is you Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32) No king talks about being pleased to give anything to his subjects. First, God is acting here in freedom. He is not under constraint to do what he doesn't really want to do. At this very point, when he gives his flock the kingdom, he is acting out his deepest delight. This is what the word means: God's joy, his desire, his want and wish and hope and pleasure and gladness and delight is to give the kingdom to his flock. "Fear not, little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure—not his duty, not his necessity, not his obligation, but his pleasure—to give you the kingdom." That is the kind of God he is. It gives him pleasure and delight to give to you.

Jesus does not say, "It is your employer's good pleasure to give you your salary." He does not say, "It is your slave master's good pleasure to give you your lodging." He does not even say, "It is your King's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." He chooses every word in this sentence to help us get rid of the fear that God is ill-disposed to us—that he is begrudging in his generosity, or constrained in his kindness. So he calls God "your Father"

The list of implications of what it means to have God as our Father could go on and on and all of them would serve to overcome the fear that God is begrudging in his kindness to us. Just the opposite is the case. He is our Father, and if we who are evil know how to give good things to our children, how much more will our Father in heaven give the kingdom to those who ask him

Then, consider the word "give." "It is your Father's good pleasure to GIVE you the kingdom." Jesus does not say, sell you the kingdom. He does not say, trade you the kingdom. He does not say work in order to get the kingdom. He says it is the Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

He gives the kingdom! It cannot be bought or bartered for or earned in any way. There is only one way to have it, and it is the easiest way of all—the gospel way—the way of Luke 18:17, "Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it."
God is not stingy. He is not a scrooge. He is not miserly or tight-fisted. . He is liberal and generous and ungrudging and bountiful. It is his good pleasure to GIVE us the kingdom.

Jesus knows that the flock of God struggles with fear. He knows that one of those fears is that God is the kind of God who is basically angry and delights most of all to judge sinners and only does good out of a sense of constraint and duty, not delight. Therefore the Lord is at pains to free us from this fear by telling us the truth about God. He has chosen every word for our comfort and joy and peace.[;

Sound too good to be true? Please understand that when God speaks in ways that are completely contrary to our expectations, then we have encountered something genuine. No one could invent a god who, in response to rebellion, is so generous that he gives his entire kingdom. Since this is too good to be true, it must be true. This, indeed, must be the living God.

All this inverts our normal way of thinking. I tend to judge God's words often times by my own feelings and sensory observations. If I feel alone and abandoned, I believe I am alone and abandoned. If I feel a sense of impending doom, the worst will in fact happen. If I am told that God reigns, but everything seems to be in chaos, I twist God's revelation about himself to fit my understanding of the data. Scripture, however, reveals the things I can't see with the naked eye, and I have God's self-revelation in the scripture as a higher authority than my feelings.

Now this is key, WHEN MY FEELINGS CONTRADICT OR CONFLICT WITH GOD'S COMMUNICATION, THAN I MUST SIDE WITH GOD'S INTERPRETATION PERIOD!

Any other interpretation, feeling, or decision, puts me above God.

The issue isn't so much whether or not we are afraid and worry. Scripture assumes that we will be afraid and anxious at times. What is important is where we turn, or to whom we turn when we are afraid. So what do I do when I am afraid? The emphasis in Scripture is, "When I am afraid, I will trust in you" (Psalm 56:3). The God who calls you to trust in him when you are afraid will spend a great deal of time showing you that you can trust him. He doesn't ask you to live with your eyes shut. Faith is not blind. The Hebrews—who first received Scripture—were very big on eyewitnesses, accurate testimony and evidence. Faith was about knowing God in an intimate, personal way and trusting him because he is trustworthy. Faith sees more, not less.

In my life I am being taken to places I can't yet see. I am asked to live by faith. But God's communication allows me to see. My life might look all scary, stressful, dark, chaotic, ominous, and suspect, but when my eyes see God, the God who says "do not be afraid", I will see that there s much more to see beyond what I see. In truth and reality, there is a beautiful, loving, powerful, purposeful, generous beyond measure, living God who wants you to talk more to him than think about fear and worry.
Battling my fear with promises of God,
Pastor Bill

A FRESH EXPERIENCE OF GOD'S LOVE

"God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:5 ESV

I love to travel. I would much rather experience a place, than read about it. What a great thrill was it for me to go to London, Canterbury, and Oxford England in 2000 and 2008. I had read so many books, seen so many films, and looked at so many photos of England in my life but I had never been there. It is one thing to have read about England, it was another entirely to experience it firsthand.

So it is with the love of God. The bible constantly affirms that God loves you, but. God wants you to go beyond merely knowing about the fact that He loves you. He wants you to move past simply believing and affirming by faith that he loves you. He doesn’t want us to allow ourselves to become spectators to His love. He desires that His love be deeply and intimately embraced. He wants you to taste it! He wants to feel the joy of being loved! He wants you to receive His love personally and powerfully in a way that is life changing. We are called to love God with our minds but also our hearts. We are more than minds aren’t we? True, genuine love, is experienced love. A love that isn’t experienced is not complete. Love is not something just “out there” to admire and observe. It is also something “in here” to feel and enjoy.

This is especially important. The Bible tells us that God Himself actively pursues a love-relationship with you. He wants us to experience and feel His love, and that He has taken all the necessary steps to see that we do. I want to explore with you several texts of Scripture that affirm this truth.

Our first is perhaps the most important one of all. It is found in Romans 5:5. The N.I.V. translates it, “God has poured out his love into our hearts.” The New Living Bible translates it, “For we know how dearly God loves us, because He has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with His love.”

Something we know in the heart that is more than a fact that we infer from argument. You can know some things from argument that you don't experience in your heart. You might argue 1) The Bible says, "For God so loved the world" (John 3:16); 2) I am part of the world; 3) therefore, God loves me. That's one way of knowing you are loved by God.

Or you might go further and say, 1) Christ told his disciples, "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13); 2) I am one of his friends because I follow him and keep his commandments (John 15:14); 3) therefore, Christ loves me with the greatest love.

Or in Romans 5:6-10 we can speak of the factual proof and demonstration of God’s love demonstrated by the cross.

These are ways of knowing you are loved by the use of argument. And that is important. We need to see these things and use them as part of our arsenal in our fight of faith. But that is not what Romans 5:5 is talking about. Romans 5:5 says that there is an experience of God's love for us that is not mainly a logical inference. It is something poured out. It is something felt in the heart. Known in the way the heart knows.

God takes great initiative in His relationship with us. He desires a relationship that is real, intimate, and personal. He desires us to “know Him” personally and intimately, not just “know about Him”. (Jeremiah 17:9;John 17:3; Philippians. 3:10) Paul tells us that God "poured out" His love "Into our hearts." The verb poured out is used elsewhere of the spilling of wine (Luke 5:37), the shedding of Christ's blood (Matthew 26:28), and of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 10:45). More graphic still is its use in Acts 1:18 of the fate of Judas: "With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out" (emphasis added).

Paul is emphasizing the unstinting lavishness with which God has flooded our hearts with a sense of His love for us. Like an overflowing stream in a thirsty land, so is the rich flood of divine love poured out and shed abroad in the heart.

This is an exuberant communication of God's love. The love of God, writes Charles Hodge, "does not descend upon us as dew drops, but as a stream which spreads itself abroad through the whole soul, filling it with the consciousness of His presence and favor."' The Holy Spirit works to evoke and stimulate in your heart the overwhelming conviction that God loves you. The amplitude and immensity of God's devotion is not abstract and generic, but concrete and personal;not for everyone in general but for you in particular.

This experience varies from time to time and person to person and can be (and should be) pursued in ever-fuller measures. Now, why do I say this? Because the tenses of the verbs are different in verse 5 between the outpouring of God's love and the giving of the Holy Spirit. Notice: "The love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us." The difference here is that the first tense "has been poured out"  (perfect indicative) implies in the original Greek that there was a past act for all believers but there is also and ongoing effect or an ongoing act as well right at this moment!. But the tense of "was given to us"(aorist participle) implies a completed and once for all action. In other words, “the love of God that was poured into your hearts by the Holy Spirit in the past is being presently poured into your hearts as well.

The thought is that knowledge of the love of God, having flooded our hearts, jilts them now, just as a valley once flooded remains full of water and enjoys its present refreshment. Paul assumes that all his readers, like himself, will be living in the enjoyment of a strong and abiding sense of God's love for them. In other words, God's love doesn't leak! Unlike the waters of Noah that receded after a time, God's love remains perpetually at flood stage in our souls!

Do we always feel it now? We were given the Holy Spirit in the past, but the outpouring seems to have ongoing and varied expressions in the present.

How are we to seek the fullness of this experience? There are several verses in the New testament that help us..

I.  2 Thessalonians 3:5

"May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ."

Here we have Paul praying that God would do something now for the Thessalonians. What does he want God to do now? He wants God to "direct their hearts." This is a remarkable phrase! The heart has directions. It moves toward one thing or another. It moves toward what it regards as attractive and satisfying and valuable.

"The soul is measured by its heights, some high and others low; but the heart is measured by its delights and its pleasures never lie."

Paul is praying that God would give the heart a sight of the love of God as more attractive and satisfying and valuable than ordinary earthly things. "May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." What would this be other than an experience of God's love? And it must be that, even though we are Christians, this movement from where we are into the love of God is needed. Otherwise Paul would not pray it. Therefore, the experience of the love of God is different from time to time and from person to person. Here we are as Christians. We have all tasted of God's love for us and have been drawn into trusting all that God is for us in Christ. But our hearts are not always steadfast. They drift and they waver. As the Puritans used to say, "There is much insensibility to divine things among Christians." This is why we need revival. And this is what revival is. Revival is not first the conversion of the lost. Revival is first the answer to Paul's prayer in 2 Thessalonians 3:5, "May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." When the Lord takes hold of the hearts of his people and directs them into the love of God, they experience the outpouring of the love of God through the Holy Spirit. When that happens to lots of people in the same place at the same time, we call it revival.

II. 2 Corinthians 13:14

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all"

Paul is closing his epistle to the Corinthians. He ends with a benediction. Here he calls on God, in the presence of the people, to make his love manifestly present and real to them. "The love of God be with you!". Make it manifestly present to you!

What do I mean by "manifestly" present? For Christians, isn't the love of God always present with us? Romans 8:35 and 39 tell us that nothing can separate us from the love of God. So if nothing can separate us from the love of God, why does Paul pray, "The love of God be with you"? The reason is because, even though the love of God is always present with believers, we do not always experience the love of God as present. Many of us at times feel the opposite, that we are not loved by God. Therefore, we want God to make his love more manifestly known. More obviously. More experientially. We sing that song, “More love, more power, more of you in my life.” This is why. Paul is calling for in 2 Corinthians 13:14 the love of God to be poured out more fully and more consciously in our hearts.

III. Jude 21

"keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life."

Jude exhorts, do what you must, to avail yourself of the unparalleled joy of receiving the love of God. That this experience is ultimately a work of God the Father, through the Holy Spirit, is confirmed by Paul's prayer in 2 Thessalonians 3:5

In the final analysis, if we are to "feel" loved of the Father it is the Father Himself who must (and will) act to remove every obstacle and clear away every encumbrance to that inexpressible experience. I can’t do it. Hearing teaching on the Father's love can’t alone do it. Reading these scriptures can't do it. God must do it.

The obstacles to this are very real indeed for us all. that is why Paul prays and we can pray that God would Himself act to obliterate such obstacles to the enjoyment of being loved and manifest, pour out, direct, our hearts into an ongoing full, deep, personal, and intimate experience into His love.

Surely, then, we must begin to pray for ourselves and for one another even as Paul prayed for the Thessalonians. Experiencing the love of God, not just thinking about it, is something we should desire with all our hearts.

IV. Ephesians 3:14-19.

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

No passage in the Bible can fill you with longings in prayer for an experience of God's love like this one. Consider what Paul is asking for as we read the prayer backward. In verse 19, he is asking that we be filled with all the fullness of God. That is an experience. We don't always have that. We want it. We pursue it. How does it come? In comes through an experiential knowing of the incomprehensible love of Christ - "to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge." And how does that experiential knowing of the love of Christ come? In verse 17, Paul asks that they be "rooted and grounded in love" so that they "may be able to comprehend" this incomprehensible love. Well, how does that rooting and grounding in love happen? Paul prays for it to happen (in verses 16-17) by the strengthening of the Spirit in the inner man so that Christ dwells (manifestly) in the heart by faith.

So here we are at the work of the Holy Spirit again. And is not all this astonishing experience in Ephesians 3:14-19 simply an unfolding of the simple sentence in Romans 5:5 that the love of God be poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us?

Oh dear reader, I pray that you and I would seek a deeper experience of the love of God. First, that you would be reflective and thoughtful on these verses I have shared and with the truth of Christ's love and and the demonstration of his love for us when he came and lived and died and rose. Second, pray for it. Really pray for it! Pray these four verses daily! Third, that you would receive it right now in Jesus Name.
Praying to see, experience, savor, and show the love of God in my life,

Pastor Bill