Father, we are so grateful to You. Once again, just to be able to say that we are so taken by Your love.
And as we would look into Your Word, we look to You to really be the life behind each word spoken—that it really would be something that is on Your heart for us; that You would speak it with power that would transform us at the seeing of Your Son.
We just want to see You more clearly this morning, Lord Jesus, to fall more deeply in love with You. And so we trust You for this time, and we thank You for it in Your most precious name, Lord Jesus.
There is only one thing that I would want the Lord to do here amongst us today, and that is that we would, in a greater way, appreciate His love for us. There is nothing more important than that.
What is on my heart this morning is servanthood. I never get tired of talking about servanthood, because it is the highest calling that we can be called to: to be servants.
That is what my Master was. He was the King who was the Servant King. And as the Master is, so shall His servants be. So I never get tired of talking about servanthood. It is what we are called to.
Now, this sounds so simple to say, but Jesus loves you. He really, really loves you. He really loves me. And He is concerned about every single area of your life.
No matter how insignificant it may seem to you, He is concerned about every area of your life. Every word that comes out of your mouth and every action you perform, He is concerned about it.
I am going to tell you a little story that some of the people at Monday night Bible study have heard. It may seem very insignificant to some people, but in the Lord there is nothing that is insignificant.
I am going to introduce you to a friend of mine that, in past times, I may not have introduced. I probably would have been embarrassed to introduce him, actually. But he is a very intimate and close friend of mine. He has been with me for many years.
His name is Right Thumb. That is right. I mean, you cannot see this right now, whoever is listening to this today, but I am holding up my right thumb. He has been with me for all of these fifty-seven summer years, going on fifty-eight.
But this is a unique thing about this thumb of mine, as can be attested to especially by one of my sons, Vincent, who has only known him for about twenty-five years now.
For many, many years, since I was a teenager, I gnawed, as disgusting as that might sound, at this thumb—to the point that, at this point in time in my life, it is all scar tissue around it. Some of the brothers and sisters who know me from Florida know about this.
No matter what I could do or try to do, because it became very, very ugly—at times it would be bleeding and stuff—I could not stop biting this thumb.
Now, I tried real hard. I would wrap it up in bandages, then I would pick the bandage off and get to the thumb, you know? I would put disgusting stuff on it so that when I put it in my mouth—but you know what? I was so persistent, I would eventually get through that disgusting stuff to that thumb.
You know, I mean, it was really a problem, I might say. My family bugged the heck out of me about this thumb. It was embarrassing to them, not alone to me. I would sometimes try to hide that thumb because it was so ugly.
Well, just recently, within the past couple of months, I was talking to a dear saint of God and sharing some things, maybe trying to point some things out. In the midst of the conversation, this dear saint said to me, “Oh yeah? Well, you cannot even stop biting your thumb.”
Now, at first, when it was said to me, I sort of discarded that because I thought it was something of a defense mechanism, diverting the conversation. But then I got alone with the Lord.
And the Lord spoke very clearly to me. He said to me, “It damages My testimony.”
Now, I tell you, the only thing I could do was go to the Lord at that and say, “Lord, I cannot stop biting my thumb. But today, by Your life in me, and for the sake of Your testimony, I will trust that I will not bite this thumb anymore and damage Your testimony.”
And I have to confess that the Lord’s life in me has stopped me from biting my thumb, without any effort on my part. His life just came and overcame it.
He is interested in every single area of your life, because every area of your life, every word you speak, every action that you take, speaks of the Lord Jesus.
So how are we going to present Him? Are we going to have a testimony that is true to His character, something that speaks of Him? Or are we going to be thumb-biters?
But He loves us. And I think sometimes He just has to get us, no matter what area of life it is, to the place where we really come to understand that we cannot. But we have this overcoming life in us that is able to overcome. And He does, by His life.
What I want to share on this morning is in the twelfth chapter of Luke’s Gospel.
Technical difficulties, yes.
And really, what is on my heart to share—the burden of my sharing—is from the thirty-fifth through the forty-fourth verses of that chapter. But we really cannot understand, or put in the right perspective, verses 35 through 44 unless we see something and understand something of what takes place from verse 1 through verse 35.
I would like to go over that by way of overview.
As we start out in verses 1 through 3, we see there in that twelfth chapter that He is talking about hypocrisy. That is quite simple and quite easy to see there, but He starts by talking about hypocrisy—an outward form that is not motivated by faith or loving devotion to the Lord.
There are other Scriptures that Jesus referred to. He spoke of some of the Pharisees as being like whitewashed sepulchres. We all know that. Everything looks good on the outside, but inside are rotting bones. There is no life inside.
Then, in verses 4 through 7, He is talking about the reverent fear of God. He says, “Do not fear those who can only kill the body, but fear God, who can kill and cast into hell.” He is talking about this almighty God. Everything is in His power. Have this reverent fear of Him.
And He goes on to speak about five sparrows sold for two copper coins. They are not forgotten. How much more worth are you to your heavenly Father? He says the very hairs of our head are all numbered.
Do not fear;
You are of much more value than they.
God is wanting, here in these verses, to begin to take us into an appreciation of His love for us and His care for us. He is laying a foundation for what He wants to speak to us as we get to verse 35 about servanthood.
Then He speaks about confessing Him before men. He says:
If you confess Me before men,
Then I will confess you before the angels of My Father.
But if you deny Me before men,
I will deny you before the angels of My Father.
Now, when we really know the Lord Jesus in His great love for us, our confession will be a testimony of His love. We will be able to share with other people, “I want to tell you something: since I have known the Lord Jesus, He has been faithful to me.”
Throughout these thirty-some-odd years now—thirty-four years—that I have known the Lord Jesus, I have to say this: He has ever been faithful.
Now, I have been unfaithful. Everyone else I know has been unfaithful. Even those who love me the most have been unfaithful. But my testimony is this, and this is my testimony: Christ is faithful.
And when we know the Lord Jesus like that, in His character, then we can confess Him with surety. We may not understand everything that is going on in our life. We may not understand the trial that we might be in at that time.
But in the midst of the trial, if we know Him in His character, we are able to say, “My God is good. He is right in all that He does. I may not understand this, but He is good, and He is loving, and He is merciful, and He is kind. This is the God I serve.”
In verses 13 through 21, it is speaking about trust. They are talking about this rich fool, this rich man who builds bigger barns and stores them up, and he puts all his hope and all his trust in his abilities.
Who do you trust? In what are you putting your trust?
Then, in verse 22, He says, “Do not worry about life.” He starts talking about the anxiousness of life.
Do not worry about your life, what you will eat;
Nor about the body, what you will put on.
Life is more than food,
And the body is more than clothing.
Consider the ravens.
The Lord Jesus is wanting to say that not only does our God love us; it is not like He sent us a postcard from heaven and just said, “With all My love, God.” But He demonstrates His love for us. Do we recognize that?
That is what the Spirit of God is wanting to do in your life and my life. He is wanting us to recognize the love of God. Because unless we recognize that, then we can never really serve Him. We will never be a faithful servant.
He says, “Look at the ravens. How your heavenly Father takes care of them. Will He not take care of you as well?”
He says, “With your worrying, with your anxiousness, can you add a cubit to your stature?” If you cannot even do something like that, why are you anxious for these other things?
Look at the lilies of the field, how your Father clothes them. Not even Solomon in all of his glory was arrayed as one of these.
He is just trying to say in this, “I want you to know how much My Father loves you. He loves you as much as He loves Me, and I love you. And We will take care of you.”
Do not be anxious.
Verse 29 says:
Do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink,
Nor have an anxious mind.
Now, that seems almost impossible to us, or maybe for some of us, not to have an anxious mind. We are anxious about everything. Some people are anxious about everything.
But He says, “Do not worry about these things. Do not have an anxious mind.” How can Jesus say that? Does He not know me? How can He make a statement like that?
Because, you know what? Anxiousness speaks of fear and inability. But the Word of God says:
Perfect love casteth out fear.
Who loves perfectly? He does. That is my testimony. That should be our testimony: that He loves us perfectly. He knows just how we need to be loved, and He loves us perfectly.
And if we would come, my dear brothers and sisters, into some understanding of the wonderful love of God—that He does really love you—we actually do not believe that, oftentimes. We really do not believe He loves us.
We look at things that are going on in our life and say, “How could He love me if He would let this thing happen?” But if we come to know the love of God because of Who He is and His character, then we will know whatever comes into our life is for our good. It is permitted by Him or ordered by Him for our good. We will come into an appreciation of that.
Be anxious for nothing.
For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. This is the first time that He uses “your Father” there. Previously, He was speaking of God, but now He is saying that this God who will take care of you is not something distant and far off. He is your Father.
And He loves you as a father. Jesus has said, “What father among you, if your child asks for a fish, would hand him a snake? Or bread and give him a stone?” If you know how to love your children like this, how much more your heavenly Father?
He is saying, “This is the One who loves you, and He is your Father.” That is filled with all sorts of thoughts about how a father cares for and loves his children. You fathers, how do you love your children? How much more does your heavenly Father love you?
But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. He says, “Do not fear.”
I think this is so tender:
Do not fear, little flock,
For it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
It delights the Father’s heart. It is the very satisfaction of the heart of God to give you the kingdom. He is saying, “Do not fret over these other things. They are inconsequential.”
Why do you take up your time being anxious about this and being anxious about that? They are so small. They are so insignificant in the whole picture of things. Your Father wants to give you a kingdom.
In Romans 14:17-19, it says the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
When you are in the kingdom of God and enjoying the kingdom of God—and we can enjoy it right now—what we find in our life is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
We begin, by the Spirit of God, to live rightly. And when you are living rightly, it eliminates guilt. We find that we have joy in the Holy Spirit.
It is not the kind of frivolous joy that we can find in all kinds of different entertainments, you might say. It is a joy that is deep-seated. It is a joy in knowing that we have a Father who loves us, that our salvation is upon this rock that is immovable.
Regardless of the trial and regardless of the storm, I, by God’s grace, can remain steadfast and not be tossed about by every wind of doctrine or tossed about by every circumstance of life. In that we can find joy and solace and peace.
This is the kingdom of God, and we can enjoy it now. But we sometimes get diverted, and our minds get taken, and we become anxious over so many things.
My little flock, your Father’s good pleasure is to give you the kingdom.
So, sell what you have. I find that little phrase—yes, “sell what you have.” He is saying, “Do you want to stand? The kingdom is yours. Sell what you have.”
What freedom, what liberty I find in that. Sell what you have. Nothing else is of any value in comparison to the kingdom.
Sell what you have, and give alms;
Provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old,
A treasure in the heavens that does not fail,
Where no thief approaches nor moth destroys.
For where your treasure is,
There your heart will be also.
So, of course, the obvious question here is: Where is your treasure? What is the treasure of your life?
Now, I am going to tell you exactly how you can find that out right now, today—where your treasure lies. It is in this statement: it is that which has most control over your mind, your heart, and your life.
Now, we have all heard that before, but somehow I have to examine my life. What has most control over your life? What takes up most of the thought in your life? It is that which has control over your mind, your heart, and your life. That is where your treasure lies.
We have to look at our lives, as I had said. In those areas where we are anxious, we can say that is where we do not trust the Lord, and that is where our treasure is.
You see, if I am particularly anxious in a particular area of my life, or if my mind is taken up—and this could be with good things as well as bad things—but if I find that my mind and my heart, the substance of my life, is controlled by a particular thought or something, that is your treasure.
Is your mind consumed with the thought of your children? Sometimes we would think, “Now, what is bad about that?”
Here is a family. For twenty years they have raised this child in the Lord. The child is out on his own now and is not walking with the Lord.
Are our thoughts so gripped by that? Are we so taken by that, so grief-stricken by that, that it inhibits us from serving the Lord? Has it so taken over our mind that now we are constricted in our life in Christ?
If so, in one sense, that is the treasure. It consumes us. It takes us up. You see, when we find a treasure, it is just what it is. It is something that is dear to us. It is something that we want to hold on to. It is something that we concentrate on. It fills our life.
So sometimes even being consumed with our children in that way speaks of our distrust for the Lord, because actually sometimes what happens is that we want to be in control of our children’s lives. We are afraid to really release them to the Lord.
And so we want to be in that control, even if our control is in our unrighteousness.
Or are you anxious about your work? Are you constantly thinking, “Is this the week that I am going to get laid off?” Worrying about where the next buck is going to come in from?
If we are consumed with that thought, if it is taking us away from loving devotion to the Lord Jesus, there our treasure lies.
And so I think we just have to examine our hearts and say, “What is my heart taken up with? What is my mind taken up with?”
Oh, have we been set free by Christ? He wants to set us free. He has come to set the captives free. And these are very practical issues.
If we were to go into the treasure room of the kingdom of God and open up the door, we would only find one thing in there, and it is Christ.
And Christ needs to be my treasure. He needs to be your treasure. He needs to be the focus of our life, the focus of our thinking, and the One who sits on the throne of our heart.
So, in these verses, the Lord, I think, really wants to establish to us that He loves us. He is a Father who cares and loves us. He has given Himself to us, and He wants us to come to appreciate that love—that He will take care of us in every area of our life.
And that is what Jesus is saying: “The Father and I love you.”
We are called to faithful servanthood, to the yielded life of a loving servant. The yielded life of a loving servant.
That song we sang, from Psalm 42:
As the deer panteth for the water brooks,
So my soul longeth after Thee.
This is a description of the servant’s heart. And I think in these next verses, as we look at servanthood, what the Lord is looking for is a servant who is motivated by the appreciation of the Master’s love for him.
He has fallen in love with the Master, and his soul longs for the Master. He loves Him. This is his life.
It says:
Let your waist be girded,
And your lamps burning.
Now, this issue of girding up the waist is speaking of being prepared, being ready to serve. It is taking up the hem of the garment they wore and tucking it in their belt.
If you read in Exodus, when they were getting ready after the Passover meal to head out, it says they were to eat their meal, to gird up the hem of their garments, and to be ready to move out. That is what this speaks of. It is the servant who is ready to serve. He is prepared.
Well, let me read this as well. In 1 Peter—if you turn to 1 Peter—it is more than just the doing of things in the way of service. It is more than that.
We are prepared with more than the strength of our hands. We are prepared in our heart, and we are prepared in our mind as servants.
In 1 Peter 1:13, it says:
Therefore gird up the loins of your mind,
Be sober,
And rest your hope fully upon the grace
That is brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now, when we first came to the Lord, from that day until the day we see Him face to face, we are encouraged to set our hope fully upon this grace that is available to us every day in His life that indwells us.
You need, and I need, to place our hope on that life that dwells in us—not on your ability, not on my ability, not on our natural strengths, but on the hope of this grace that indwells us.
It says of His grace we have all received grace upon grace. We have a fountain of grace that is within us.
As obedient children—not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance—but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written:
Be holy, for I am holy.
And if you call on the Father, Who without partiality judges according to each man’s works, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers.
Our mind needs to be sober. It needs to be girded up. Our motivation needs to be the love of God. That is what we serve out of, not out of tradition.
That is why I am saying, in order to be a faithful servant of God, we have to understand His love for us. We have to appreciate His love for us. We have to know that we have been bought with a price and that we are not our own.
How do we serve? Do we just serve out of tradition? Now, you know, we can serve right here just out of tradition. We know on certain Saturdays of the month we are called to work here, as our group is on to work here on Saturdays.
Do you come because it is the tradition of the Richmond Christian Fellowship to do that?
Or are you motivated out of the love of God because you have grown in appreciation of His love for you, that He has laid down His life for you, that He gave His life up for you? And because of that, now you want to serve Him in your brothers and sisters.
Are you motivated by that love to do that, or is it merely our tradition here?
When you come on Wednesday night, or you go to the Friday night meetings, are you going because if you are not there, maybe somebody is going to talk about you?
Why are we going? What is the motivation about servanthood? Is it because we are in love with Him? Because we have grown in the appreciation of His great love for us?
And because of that, we serve. Because we are beginning to appreciate His life as it is in the brothers and sisters. We see Him in them, and whatever we do to the least of our brethren, we do it unto Him.
Is that our motivation? It has to be. It is the only way you can be a faithful servant. Otherwise, you are just operating by the traditions of men.
We are called to love—to love. That is the earmark of our servanthood.
What I just went through, this little episode recently—this transient global amnesia I had, that I was in the hospital for—one thing the Lord showed me a little more clearly than what I had known before.
I will just read this from 1 Corinthians. You do not need to turn there. The sixth chapter—make that the sixth chapter, verse 19.
He made me see something I had never seen before. God is interested in every area of our life. You know, even like I gave testimony last Sunday, even when I was out of my mind, God was using me.
In the nineteenth verse, it says:
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,
Who is in you, Whom you have from God,
And you are not your own?
For you were bought at a price;
Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit,
Which are God’s.
Your body belongs to God. Your spirit belongs to God. You belong to God because you have been bought with a price: the precious blood of the Lamb of God. You are owned by Him.
And He made me see that like I had never seen it before. It is His prerogative what He does with me.
If He puts me in the hospital, I am a vessel of His that He can use in whatever way He chooses for His glory, and it will be for my good.
I am not my own. You are not your own. Somehow God wants us to understand that.
He is the sovereign God. Everything He does is right. And if I was in the hospital and I did not have a memory for that period of time in my life, that was the right thing.
Because, you know what? I am not my own. I am a vessel in the Lord’s hands. I am greatly loved.
And because of that, because of the price He paid for me, He can do with me whatever He wants. May it be to His glory. I know it is for my good.
And you yourselves, verse 36:
Be like men who wait for their master.
This is not just hanging around. That is not what He is talking about here. It is not that we are just hanging out, waiting for something to happen.
But we are to wait with loving expectation, as one who is in love with his Master, one who appreciates his Master’s company, one who looks to be with the Master.
One who appreciates, when he is with the Master, that he senses the Master’s love for him. He has seen the faithfulness of the Master, and he waits with longing anticipation for the return of his Master.
That is the kind of waiting He is talking about here. It is dynamic. It is not, like I said, hanging around. There is something dynamic about it. There is something going on within his heart, within his mind.
It is the remembering of how wonderful his Master is, and he waits with longing for Him to come down the road. This is a relationship of love.
He waits to see the Master because he enjoys the love of the Master.
And you yourselves be like men who wait for their master,
When he will return from the wedding,
That when he comes and knocks,
They may open to him immediately.
Now, these wedding feasts that they are speaking of here, these wedding feasts in the East—I mean, they really knew how to party. It was not that you went to the ceremony in the morning, had the reception in the afternoon, and then you were home by midnight. These things went on for sometimes weeks at a time.
So these servants who were in the house did not know exactly when the Master was going to be home.
But they were called to be ready—girded up, lamps lit, looking for the Master with loving and longing anticipation.
And it says that when He comes and knocks, then they open to Him immediately. Anxious to see Him: “Oh, Master, it is so good to have You home.”
Are we prepared to welcome the Master like that? Or are our lives such that we are not prepared, and when we see the Master coming, we run around trying to get things ready, trying to straighten up our lives, trying to make things right, trying to make things look good?
Are we the kind that go from day to day, occasionally giving thought to the Lord? Then all of a sudden some trial comes upon us, and we run and frantically begin to pray those pleading kind of prayers.
Are we the ones who, when the Master is around, are all dressed up and looking pretty, but when He is not, we just live real sloppily?
Are we the kind that look real good for the brothers and sisters? We come to the meetings, and everything seems to be just fine on the outside. But get alone, get behind closed doors, and there is a different kind of life being lived. Get on the job, and it is a different kind of life.
What kind of servants are we? Are we those that, when the Master is there, can open immediately because we have been ready, our minds have been girded, our lamps are lit, and we are there with longing anticipation—loving anticipation—for Him?
Or do we cringe at the thought of His coming? Do we cringe?
In the presence of other believers, you know, I know in my own life there were times when I entertained sin in my life as a believer. I did not want to be around believers. You know, I cringed, because the holiness of God dwells in the believer’s heart.
It says, verse 37:
Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching.
Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself
And have them sit down to eat,
And will come and serve them.
And if he should come in the second watch,
Or come in the third watch, and find them so,
Blessed are those servants.
I find that just wondrous. This is the love of God for us.
When He comes and finds that servant, this is the love that He says: “Oh, you know, as much as you love Me, I have got to tell you, I love you. Sit down.” And He girds Himself and begins to serve us.
Is that not the life of our Master? You look at the life of the Lord Jesus. All the time, He said of Himself, “I did not come to be served, but to serve.”
You see, that is the Lord’s life. He lived a life that was laid down from beginning to end. And to this very moment, He never ceases to make intercession on our behalf. This is the Master who serves us. He is the Servant King.
How can it be?
It is the wondrous and lavish love of God. This is what these Scriptures are wanting us to take note of. This is the One who loves you. This is what should motivate us to serve, because He loves us so much.
We need to fall in love with Him. It is an intimate exchange of love between Master and servant, servant and servant.
He makes servants to be masters, and He takes the Master and He is a servant. It is wondrous. He takes slaves and makes them kings, and then the King becomes a slave.
Where is the line, you know? Here are the servants waiting to serve the Master. The Master comes and serves the servants. This is love. What great love.
But know this: that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come,
He would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into.
Therefore you also be ready,
For the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
“Therefore” is saying, look at how the Master is.
He is not saying in verse 39, “Now, I am going to try to come and sneak up on you, so be careful.” That is not what that Scripture is saying.
As the Master is prepared, He wants us to guard our hearts and guard our minds, that nothing will take us away from our task; that when the Lord comes, He finds us busy about His work.
Have the same mind in you that was in Christ. The Lord Jesus would not allow anything to divert Him from that which His Father called Him to do. Nothing.
We see that from the beginning of His life to the end of His life. We see it through His childhood. We see it after His baptism. He is out in the wilderness. He is tempted. Nothing was going to thwart the purpose that the Father had set for Him, right to the very end.
And that is what He is saying here: “Know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, be prepared.” Be prepared. Guard your heart. Guard your mind.
Then Peter said to Him, “Lord, do You speak this parable only to us, or to all people?”
And the Lord said:
Who then is that faithful and wise steward,
Whom his master will make ruler over his household,
To give them their portion of food in due season?
Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.
Truly, I say to you,
He will make him ruler over all that he has.
Now, this is interesting because, as we look in that forty-second verse, it says, “Who then is the faithful and wise steward?” Up to this point, He had been using the word servant, and now He says, “Who is the faithful and wise steward?”
Well, this is who it is. It says, “Blessed is that servant.” Who is this steward? It is the servant. It is the servant who has taken responsibility seriously and has actually functioned in the capacity of a steward.
He showed the character of a steward. He did not take lightly the task that was given to him, to the extent that he made sure that he was serving even the others. Though he was a servant, he served others. He was acting in the capacity of a steward.
I remember some years ago in Florida, as a detective, I had been a detective for quite some time. Then they put me in and made me a supervisor of a detective unit.
Now, when they initially gave me that position to work, it was one of those positions where you had the title, but you did not have the money, you know what I mean?
But I functioned in the capacity of a supervisor and functioned that way, even though I was not a supervisor. But I functioned in that capacity until the time came that I could be a real supervisor.
Now, that is something of what He is saying here. Who was the faithful steward? It is that servant who has taken his responsibility seriously and has wanted to live in a way that would please and delight the Lord’s heart.
And he functioned just as if he was a steward because he had care and concern over the Master’s goods, over what was significant and important to the Master. What was important to the Master was important to that servant. He took responsibility.
Truly, I say to you,
That he will make him ruler over all that he has.
Now, verse 45 and on is another time, because I feel this is important to know, and you can read them.
But I do feel that what was on my heart—I was initially going to share something else. It is something that is working in my heart yet, but I was prepared to share this other topic. I was going to call it “The Progressive Work of God in the Believer’s Life.”
But as I began, these last days, going over it, the Lord just turned my heart as I was praying and asking what the Lord had on His heart for us here at this time. And He pointed me to this.
Because again, I feel, my dear brothers and sisters, that we have to come to believe that God loves us. It is that simple. It is all tied up in that: all coming to know the love of God.
It is the only thing that will motivate us to real servanthood. It is what will set us free. It is what will bring joy to your life. It is what will bring assurance to our lives: to know the wonderful love of the Lord Jesus.
In that we can have confidence. That is where our hope is. That is where we are consoled. It is that which comforts us. It is all found in the love of Christ.
And that is my prayer for you and me: that by the Spirit of God, we would know experientially the wonderful love of Christ.
Lord, that is the prayer. And I just ask that these words of Yours would take root in our hearts and bear fruit and give liberty. And yes, as has been prayed, that we would know the love of God.
Amen.