April 11, 2021
Sunday AM
Matthew 22: 34- 39 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” 37 Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
Your heart is the seat of affection. It is everything that makes you who you are. It is the center of who you are. Not just your spirit, but also your soul. The soul is your mind, will, and emotions. You are not a mind. You are a spirit. You are not a soul; you only possess a soul. You are a spirit that is the eternal part of you. You are a spirit, you have a soul, you live in a body. Notice the word “all” is mentioned 3 times. God don’t want just part of you, He wants all of you. You can start worshiping God and your mind will drift off at times. What you have to do is discipline your mind and your flesh. When you practice that, you are making it do what you want it to and not what it wants you to do. See the difference?
Worshipping God brings everything that God is, into your life. God does not pick and choose. He does not prefer one person over another. This is for every single one of His children. You must choose to worship Him. You will worship something or someone. It is up to you who that is. If you are not worshipping God, you are worshiping something else. We were created for worship. Do you want to know who you’re worshipping? Follow the trail of your time, and your money. Whatever you worship, you will serve. Whatever you continually bow down & worship, you’ll take on it’s characteristics. If you’ll worship God every day, you’ll take on His characteristics. You have to invite Him in! When you don’t worship Him, you keep Him on the outside of your life. He wants in! Worship always brings the presence of God. It is so powerful!
The first commandment is to love God with everything in you. Then, the second, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. How do you know that you love God? You love people. You know that your love for God is increasing when your love for people is increasing and your love for yourself is decreasing. If we all loved other people as much as we love ourselves, we’d already be in heaven. Love God first of all, then you will have His love to love other people with. Because you can’t love people more than you love yourself with natural human love. It can only happen with divine love. Because natural human love is selfish. It is the love of oneself first. Divine love is a love that denies itself on behalf of others. Its total focus is the well-being of the other person. For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son. In other words, He was more interested in your salvation than anything else. He is willing to give the best He had even when you don’t know Him or care about Him or want Him. That’s love. Then you have God’s love working in you, you can love your enemies. You can’t do it apart from God’s love. You can’t even forgive people like you need to apart from God’s love. You can’t generate what didn’t originate within you. There is nothing in the word that teaches to love yourself. It teaches you to love God and let Him love you. Then you have something to love others with.
Exodus 20 1-6 And God spoke all these words, saying:
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; 5 you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
God will tolerate no rivals. There should be nothing more exciting to you than the things of God. He wants to be first in your life. Whatever you bow down to, you will serve. You either love God, or you don’t. There is no middle ground. You either worship Him, or you’re worshiping something else. He wants your affection, your thoughts, your heart. God will give Himself to you, but you have to go after Him. People have so many problems in their lives because they don’t worship God.
Exodus 20:7 “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
This means you are not to say things about God that are not true. God is not the damner. He is the blesser. God does not put sickness on people, He is the healer. When you say things about God that are not true, you are taking His name in vain.
Exodus 20:8-17 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
13 “You shall not murder.
14 “You shall not commit adultery.
15 “You shall not steal.
16 “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.”
The church today needs to be reminded of these things. It is only uncomfortable if you are doing them. But, if you love God, and you love people, you won’t want to do any of these things. The commandments 1-4 deal with your relationship with God. Then next six change in nature because they deal with your relationship with other people. Do you see the importance of loving God, and loving other people? This is why He says in Matthew 22:40, “On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.”
When you make the decision to bow down and worship God every day, your love for people will increase. The biggest issues in an individual’s life are based on two things. Selfishness and pride. When you were born into this earth, those things were inherited inside of you from Adam & Eve. They were put in Adam & Eve when they were in the garden, disobeyed God, died spiritually, and the nature of Satan came in them. When you realize how much pride and selfishness you have in your life, you might take it seriously. When you wake up and go about your day without bowing down to God to worship, you’re saying, “God, I can do this on my own, I do not need you.” It is self-dependent. And when you recognize that and come to Him and ask for help, He will help you! The pride and selfishness in your life has cause more pain and suffering than the devil ever has. Pride and selfishness negatively affect your relationship with God. Do you like to be around someone who is full of arrogance? Do you like to hang around a person that does not like to talk about anything but themselves? It is no different with God! When you bow down to God, humility is coming. Because what you are saying is, “You’re greater than me, You’re God, I am not.” Humility comes before honor. Do you want God to promote you? He can’t promote pride. It is the original sin of Satan.
3 John 2 Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
Your physical health, and the health of your finances, is based on the health of your soul. When there are things between you and other people that have brought pain, unforgiveness, revenge, it hinders your soul. It will affect your physical well-being, and your financial well-being. You can be sick in your soul, just as you can be sick in your body. You can have pain in your soul, just as you can have pain in your body. The soul is not like your body. Your body was made by God to heal itself. But the soul, has to have a lot of help.
1 John 4:18-19 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love Him because He first loved us.
As love is perfected in you, and matures, it drives out anything in your life that is not like God. It casts out anything that comes into your life through darkness. If you have things between you and other people that you just cannot let go of, it is because you do not worship God. You cannot continue to worship God and His love not increase in you, and it does not drive those dark things out of you. It is impossible. You can’t love God and not love people. If your relationship with people is not right, your relationship with God is not right. We are where we are in our lives based on our choices. When we realize the seriousness of this, it is easy to bow down to God. Even Jesus Himself said, “I can of my own self do nothing.” If Jesus said that, how much more do you and I need to say that. We can’t do anything without God’s help. And God is here to help! God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. Darkness cannot stay where light comes. Fear has to go! If you’re full of fear and anxiety, God’s love is the answer.
When we were born into the family of God, we gained a capacity to receive God’s love and to love in return. Through spending time in private fellowship with God, we increase that capacity. And as that capacity for His love increases, the more of His love we are able to receive. God is love! He wants to love you more! But you can’t contain it where you’re at. He’s loving you as much as He possibly can where you are. But every time you go to worship Him, it increases your capacity to receive His love. The more you go to him, the bigger the tank gets. The more love you can receive, the more fear and unforgiveness, and pain of the past can be driven out of you! It can be very addicting! “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.” God created us for worship.
Peace is the absence of fear and torment. Make it to peace, and life can be good! Peace can be yours if you’ll let His love come in!