This past Sunday, we were blessed to have Dr David Murray preach for us and also administer the sacraments of the Lord's Supper. His scripture was on John 14:15-31, mainly focusing on verse 23.
"Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep
My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him
and make Our home with him."
He started out by focusing on the loving obedience needed from us. We learned that (1) we do not earn His love by keeping His commandments, (2) Commandment keeping is not love, (3) we manifest our love for God by keeping His commandments.
His second point focused on the loving communion from God in response to our loving obedience. (1) Believers obedience has no impact on their status as sons of God. (2) Our obedience determines the quality of our experience and enjoyment of God. (3) The more loving obedience we manifest, the more loving communion we benefit.
Some points of my own, things I came away with..
(1) Jesus loves me no matter what: now we all know that in our minds, but sometimes we forget it in our hearts and hearing it again from the pulpit reminds me even though I am a sinner, no matter how sinful I am if I love the Lord and keep His word, the Lord will love me back and come and live in my heart.
(2) No matter how many times I sin against the Lord, He will not leave me. My life as a Christian is like a roller coaster with many ups and downs, but Jesus promises to "come to him and make Our home with him". Jesus will not treat us like a roller coaster. When we sin, He leaves us and when we repent He comes back. NO, He is there to stay in our hearts! Isn't that amazing? That He would think us worthy enough to stay with us and show patience, love, forgiveness every time we sin against Him.
Now, we all have our days where we do not want to do devotions or maybe even some of us just don't feel like praying, but when we neglect those things that help us commune with Christ, then our experience and enjoyment of Christ will go down. I struggle with the same thing, but remember if you want to learn more about the Lord and experience Christ more fully then reading your Bible and praying will need to be on your daily "things to do" list. In fact it should be number one.
How is your life with God? Do you struggle with some of these things?
One of my residents at my work has this magnet on his fridge: "God is only a prayer away". So true and so easy to forget at times.
Click here to listen to the sermon
Lenelle
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