|
|
|
|
UNDERSTANDING THE LOVE OF GOD SERIES
THE
PRECIOUSNESS OF SOULS
Eph. 3: 14-19 “For this reason I bow my
knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from whom the whole family in
heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of
His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man
that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and
grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the
width and length and depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes
knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”
So the purpose of our study on love is because if we are rooted and
grounded in love, we will be able to comprehend, that is to understand the
greatness of God’s love. And when that
happens we will be filled with the fullness of God. The result of being grounded and rooted in
love is to be filled with God’s fullness.
The bible declares in I John God is love and he
who knows God will know love. He who does
not know God will not know how to love.
So the bible tells us that love is the greatest. In I Cor.13 there is hope, there is faith
and there is love and he concludes by saying the greatest is love. This love we are talking about is not some
emotional feelings but it’s the love that we choose to do. The agape love is more than emotion. It is a voluntary act of choice and a
benevolent attitude towards all. This
love that God has given onto us is not a love that we have seen last week,
where love does not take advantage of people.
It is a love more than we give ourselves than we take advantage. Neither is it a love that would run all over
the place to be taken advantage of.
There are two sides of a coin.
There is one side when love takes advantage of others. That’s not God’s love. That’s is human love
at a human level. On the opposite side
is that the love of God will not allow you to be taken advantage of by
others. You know human love is more
like human sympathy where people take advantage of you. The love of God is full of wisdom.
Phil.1 in his prayers for the Philippians, he
mentioned. Phil.1: 9 “And this I
pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and in all
discernment.” What’s the purpose?
Verse 10, “That
you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and
without offense till the day of Christ.”
So your love must
grow in discernment. This means the discerning love of God in you will not take advantage of others
neither will it allow others to take advantage of you. What do I mean by letting others take
advantage of you? Some people misquote
the bible where they say give to all that ask from you and if anyone in need
then you are obligated to help them.
They pull the bible to the extreme and so what happens is that people
start taking advantage of them and it end up actually not helping a
person. You end up destroying a
person. For example, some preachers say
that if a drug addict asks for money, they will always give. I think that will destroy the drug addict
because that is not love. Love thinks in
terms not of the immediate but of the eternal.
See immediately you say this guy has a need, but on the eternal side in
the long run it’s different. Love always
thinks in the long run. How do you help
the person? Love thinks of helping the
person feel. It thinks of helping the
other person in a long run not in the short run. And so in the long run you see that by giving
money to the drug addict it will not help him.
Perhaps all you can do is just share a meal with him and share the
gospel to him. Feed him and give him the
gospel. That would have been better than
giving him money and then he would spend it on drugs and may have an overdose
and destroy himself and die.
In the same way sometimes there are
Christians who are conmen. What they do
is they take advantage of Christian’s love, so they will keep on coming to you
for a need and especially take care of your Christian sympathy. They are actually making use of you. If you look at their lives, you would not
help them. If you help them to maintain
that habit of borrowing, what happens is that you are looking at them in the
immediate. They come to you with a sob
story and say we need this and we need that.
And they keep coming to you and in the end you keep helping them. You don’t actually love them because you are
only thinking of the immediate. Love
thinks of the eternal and the future. If
you teach someone to fish, it is much better than giving him or her a fish. If you
give them a fish, they eat it and then the next day they come back for another
fish. The best is to teach them to fish
then they won’t come back to you because they know how to catch their own
fish. In the same way, love teaches
others to fish and not give them the fish.
You must think in long terms. So
you have to pray. If people come to you
and bring forth a need you have to pray.
Lord will I help this person if I just give what this person wants. You know that our Father does not treat us
that way also. Our Father won’t just
rain down everything on us and spoil us.
Father God trains us before He pass something to us. I am sure you all know this. To receive a certain type of anointing, He
tests you and when you are ready then He blesses you with that. In the same way, when you pray for financial
blessing, God won’t simply pour it down on you and destroy your life.
If you give a small child one hundred dollars,
I can guarantee you the small child will spend it all on chocolates and ice
cream. What happens? The child does not know the value of money
and so the child destroys itself. The
same way our Father knows what we can handle and He trains us before He pass it
to us. That is why a lot of rich
millionaires destroy their own children by just passing the inheritance to the
children without training them to handle the inheritance. So many of them grow up not
knowing how to work. They have no
maturity in handling social life. No
maturity in learning how to handle the affairs of life because they have it in
an easy way for their whole life. They
had never been trained. They have not
gone through difficult time. They have
not learned to make decisions. They have
not learned the appreciation of what they have received, so they end up
destroyed. So love does not take
advantage nor does it allow others to take advantage of you. Love will discern. Let your love grow in discernment. So we are going to see the preciousness of
the soul this morning.
John 3: 16 “For
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
He says God so loved the world. I want you to know that when he says God so
loved the world, although the word world is in the Greek ‘cosmos’, it refers to
the people on this earth. God loves
people. Love has a high value of the
sanctity of human life. God loves the
world. He loves every child; He loves
every man and woman on this planet earth.
It is never God’s intention for anyone to be lost or to go to hell. In fact God never made hell for human
being. Hell lakes of fire were designed
for the devil. It was not designed for
human beings to go in. I Tim.2: 3-4 “For
this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men
to be saved.” You see that the
doctrine of double pre-destination is wrong.
The doctrine that says some are to be saved and some are to be
lost. That’s wrong because here the Bible says all are to be saved. God
wants and God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the
truth. It is God’s will for every single
person born on the planet earth to be saved and to go the heaven to enjoy the
goodness of God and to enjoy the blessing of God.
Look closely at Matthew 25, Jesus when He
talks about His second coming makes mention of this, when He talks about
judgment in verse 41, “Then He will also say to those on the left hand,
Depart from Me, your cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil
and his angels.” See God never
prepared the lake of fire for human beings or human souls. It was designed as a judgment place for
Satan. But what happens is Satan is now
pulling human beings there. Just think
about the love of God. His love is so
great that He never wanted a single human being to be lost. He wants all to be saved and He designed a
plan for every human being. Every soul
that goes into hell is not going by the intention of God. Hell in not designed for human souls. Why did God judge the devil and his angels
and give human beings a chance? There is
a great difference. The devil and his
angels fell without temptation. Human
beings fell by temptation. That is why
human beings were given a chance. There
was no devil to tempt the devil. Of his
own free choice, he chose to go against God.
And even human beings when they chose to go against Christ, it says in
the book of Hebrew, there is no way to come back. See God honors our choice. The vast majority
fell into sin by temptation and not just merely by free choice. They did choose in a temptation but their
will have been weakened through temptation.
The devils’ will were never weakened at all. It was the same strong will. That is why God designed the lake of fire and
hell for the devil and his angels. What
happens is that the devil is pulling people there. The devil is pulling souls into hell, pulling
precious souls into hell where God never intended for them to land at that
place.
So this morning
we are going to see the preciousness of a human soul. If I were to ask you, what do you consider
the most valuable thing on this planet earth?
Your answer will depend on your knowledge of the word. Your answer will also depend on your life
principles. If your life principle is to
go after money, then you would say silver and gold or jewel is the most
precious thing on this planet earth. But
if your life principle is changed and conform to what God mentioned, then I
want to tell you that the bible says, God so loved the world. As you look at the world, do you know that He
sees the gold, He sees the diamonds, He sees the jewel, the precious stones, He
sees everything that human beings consider valuable. When He looks at the whole world the most
valuable item to God is the human soul and it worth more than six millions
dollar. Man is worth much more than
that. So it’s not the six millions
dollar man.
In Mark 8, lets see
how much a man is worth. Verse 36-37 “For
what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own
soul? Or what will a man give in
exchange for his own soul?” Do you
realize how Jesus is valuing the soul?
Jesus says the soul is worth more than the whole world. I can assure you that the whole world is
worth billions and billions of dollars.
Your soul is worth more than that.
Jesus says what can a man give in exchange for his soul and He says what
will he profit if he loses that soul and gains the
whole world. In accounting term it would
still be a loss. It’s not even
equal. He says there is no profit
here. What is the profit? Nothing. That means it is counted as a loss. If you put on the credit side the world and
on the debit side a human soul, you will still get your accounts in the
red. The value of a human soul is more
than the world. God has put a great
investment on the human soul. The most
expensive computer in the world today cannot even match one tiny little bit of
what the brain can do. God had designed all of our human parts. Preciousness He has placed on the human
soul. We need to get a grasp of this
preciousness of the soul so that when you look at another human being, you
would realize that that is billions of dollars walking about.
Some people go by making friends depending
on what the person has or what the person owns.
I think if they are Christians they need to be renewed. Some people make friends based on what the
person’s background is. Some people make
friends based on what comes after your name.
I think all these things are worthless because this human attitude is
based on evaluating how much a person is worth by what they own and by how much
they have earned. This is not the way
Jesus evaluates a human being. Every
human being is worth more than the whole world.
Every single soul, whatever comes after their name, whether they own
lands and houses or they own nothing but the shack they live in, they are worth
the death of Jesus Christ.
If
you find yourself having low self-esteem and you say, “I am not worthy,” let me
tell you Jesus spent His life for you.
Do you believe that Jesus would not put His blood on something that has
no value? Jesus bought you with His
blood. Jesus did not buy something
without value. Jesus values you and
whether you value yourself or not it’s a different matter. But Jesus values you enough to pay for you
with His blood. If you were the only one
in sin and the rest of the world were saved, Jesus
would still come down from the cross and die on the cross for you. How do you know Jesus would do that? Remember the parable of the 100 sheep. Ninety-nine were all right but one sheep went
astray. Jesus said He the shepherd was
willing to go for the one sheep. That is
the love of Jesus. That’s the heart of
Jesus. That’s the value that Jesus has
on each human soul, whether the human soul has come to know God or not. He looks at each other human soul with love.
Kenneth Hagin when he was brought before Jesus at the throne, he
bowed down before Jesus and He cried at Jesus’ feet. When he cried and cried he said, “Lord I am
not worthy to look at You,” and Jesus told him in a
firm voice, “Stand up, I have made you worthy.”
And when he looked up, he looked straight into the eyes of Jesus and
that was the first time he looked eyeball to eyeball at Jesus. He said Jesus’ eye was like a river of love
flowing inside. May we all grow to love
people the way Jesus loves us.
Smith Wigglesworth says that he always trains
himself and he always makes himself conscious to look at people with the love
of Jesus, with the eyes of Jesus that when people look into his eyes people may
see the love of Jesus.
When people look into your eyes can people
tell that you love them? Did you know
that the eyes are very interesting?
People who study human character said they have discovered something
about the human eyes. When people love
you and look at you with love, the iris of the eye open bigger. One day as I was looking at the science book,
there were two pictures of a person exactly the same except for the eye. But they never tell you what it was
first. So they put two pictures of the
same person and they said which person do you like? Which picture are
you attracted to more? When I looked at
those two pictures I said this one. They put 100% of the time people are
attracted to the one on the right side.
Why, because the picture on the right side of that person, the pupil was
open bigger. Of course, you and I don’t
study the pupil and see whether the pupil is big or small. But our sub-conscious mind picks all the
invisible signals.
Do you know that your sub-conscious mind
or even your conscious mind can be trained to pick up whether people are angry with
you or not through your voice? Children
can pick up through the tone of your voice what’s your feeling towards
them. And sometimes you are at the
sub-conscious level. In the same way
somehow in the sub-conscious mind we register when we look into that person’s
eye whether they like us or they don’t like us.
If you ever seen people who are angry, do you know sometimes hate comes
into their eyes. You could literally see
hatred in the eyes. But the eyes of
Jesus are full of love. We want to train
our eyes until our eyes can look at people and radiate the love of God just
flowing through the eyes. Jesus said the
eye is the light of the body. People can
tell whether you like them or you love them by the eyes. Jesus puts value on the soul and every soul
is precious. But do you know when a
child comes into this world and the child is nursed and grows up, the child
tends to pick up what attitude the adult has subconsciously.
The majority of adults place more value on
material things ever since the fall of Adam.
When man fell into sin in Genesis 3, human has placed more value on
things than on souls. There is a poster
I like, it says, use things and love people.
Don’t love things and use people.
The people of the world go by the second part. They love things and they use people. As long as you are an advantage to them, as
long as you can be an object and asset to them, they will be with you. But the moment your liability, the moment you
cause a minus to their lives or to what they want, you will be dropped
off. Their friendship with others is
based on what they can get. Whether it’s
position or things, if it profits them then they spend time with you. If it doesn’t profit them you are
neglected. They are the people who go by
this life principle saying love things and use people. So if they have a chance to get over your
head and get promoted, they will still step over your head. You are just used as a stepping-stone. They love things and use people.
But the Christian life principle is love
people and use things. So you must know
the right things to use. Don’t use
people. Use things. When Adam fell into sin, Adam begins to put a
priority on things and all men after that begin to put a priority on things
too. Did you notice that when Cain
killed Abel and he was driven out to be a vagabond, the bible says he began to
build cities and his descendants began to build cities? They began to be skillful in the arts and in
metallurgy. See they began to put more
value on things. What God has valued
first was the soul. Human beings put
more value on the things, on possessions than they have on the human
souls. If you don’t believe, you go to
the insurance company; you ask how much is your life worth. They look at you and ask, “How much are you
earning?”
In Luke 12, people who love things and use
people, many of them get scolding from Jesus because Jesus’ life principle is
different from them. Luke 12: 13, a very
innocent request, a request that many people in the world will be doing when
they confront a lawyer. Something that many modern pastors probably are confronted by the
same situation too – family squabbling over inheritance. Verse 13, “Then one from
the crowd said to Him, Teacher, tell my brother, to divide the inheritance with
me.” Look at it very
carefully, his brother and he had a problem.
If it is a modern church situation, they will still come to the same
area. And he said tell him to do
it. He has a right. According to the Old
Testament law, that brother has a right.
That brother has a right to the inheritance. He is right and what he says was
correct. He deserves the inheritance and
it was his by choice and by right at birth.
Jesus Christ puts no value on things.
Do you know in heaven they use gold for the roads? Do you think you can hold up a sack of gold
and think to yourself, “Praise God, I have achieved all these wealth,” and you
go and you knock on the gates of heaven.
Then St. Peter opens the gate to you and you said, “I brought my earthly
possessions.” St. Peter asks, “What is
that?” You say, “Gold.” He said,” Sorry,
we use gold for the roads here. There is
no use as a medium of exchange. No value
in heaven.”
And Jesus Christ says in verse 14, “Man,
who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you.” Jesus said I am not a lawyer and I don’t
intend to be a lawyer to sue your brother and He said to them, Verse 15, “Take
heed and beware of covetousness.”
Did you see that? Do you know
whom Jesus was hitting at? That brother
came and said, Jesus, tell my brother to divide the inheritance. Jesus said don’t be covetous. Jesus puts no value on things. Which is why many times I
mentioned and counseled some and it fact has turned the opposite way for them. One brother wrote a teaching book and the publisher
didn’t pay him. He had the right to
sue. He counseled with me and I prayed
and I felt the Holy Spirit said, “Don’t sue, just let
it go. See you can sue and get the money
but you may lose that person’s soul. If
you don’t sue, you go to that fellow and say, I am a
Christian and I am not suing you because I am a Christian. I want you to know why I am not suing
you. If I am not a Christian you are
finished because in the court you will lose.”
So what happens? After many
months without doing anything, the money just came to him. He didn’t even have to pay lawyer’s
fee. The Holy Spirit is the lawyer and
He does not charge any fee.
See the love way is better. It works.
So here we have Jesus saying “take heed, beware of covetousness, for
one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” Now isn’t it completely contrary to the
world. The world’s principle is this,
one’s life consist in what one possess.
But Jesus’ principle is, it does not consist in
that. If Jesus went by the world’s
standard, He would not have chosen His twelve disciples. He would have chosen the Pharisees because by
the world’s standard they were far richer.
They were far more intellectual, far more educated. Instead He chose the tax collectors and He
chose fishermen, people who were nobody in the world. He did not choose the titled men of His
days. In fact it was the titled men who
crucified Him. He chose all the common
carpenters. People
from the streets and that is why we run this church differently. We don’t care what comes after your
name. We don’t care what you own. But all we are concerned about is if God has
called you. Whatever gifts God has
placed in your life, just function in it.
Even if you live in a shack but if the gift and anointing of God is on
your life to be an elder, you still can qualify as an elder. We don’t care what you have or what you don’t
have because Jesus doesn’t care too.
It’s more on what value He has placed in your life and what He wants you
to do. That is the most important. We also say the same thing to everyone who
comes, that if it is not God’s will for you to function in a certain area in
the church, we are not going to place you just for position because a church is
not a place for position. It a place to
serve and it would be like putting a square peg in a round hole if you are
fitting in an area where God never chose you to fit. This is why if you are not an evangelist,
don’t be an evangelist, be something else. God surely has something for you. After all God has a plan for your life.
So Jesus said to this man, “Don’t be
covetous. For life is not just what you have and possess.” See for this man who came and said, “Jesus
tell my brother to share my inheritance,” for him this is his life. He needs it.
He wants it. This is what life
consists of gathering more. Jesus said
don’t do that. Jesus said life is more
than that. And then Jesus said the
parable of the rich man. So he had
everything but you know one thing he did not have. He never loves. You can have everything on this planet earth
but if you have never love others, when we talk about love, we can give without
love but you can’t love without giving.
This man always thinks about himself.
So when he had all the blessings he said, eat, drink and be merry. Let me
build a bigger barn and the next day he died.
See life consist of loving others.
Do you know what is the greatest investment you can
have that you can bring to heaven?
It is when you have helped another soul.
It is something that cannot be measured.
When your life has helped another, it adds into your heavenly
credit. These are the things that you
can bring to heaven. Those are things of
value. I put it in a different way. It is when you have loved others that you
have made a heavenly investment. See
love is the greatest investment we can have in our life. This man here has not loved others. He has not deposited love into others
life. The more you love the more reward
is in heaven. The more you have
established other souls, the greater your reward. The greatest investment you can have in your
life is in other souls. I pray that
through this word this morning it may change your life’s goal and what you are
investing your life in.
All these things in life God knows you need them.
We know you need to pay your rent.
We know you need to pay your house installments. We know you need money to pay for your car
and we know you need money to buy food but remember what Jesus said, all these
things will come automatically without you going after them if you will love
others. Put His kingdom first. Use your life to invest in souls. In other words, Jesus is saying, what the
world is going after is fringe benefits.
Have you ever
seen people going for a job? All they go
is for is the fringe benefits. They
forgot about the job. These people
sometimes are the useless workers. You
know why? They are thinking of what they
can get and not thinking what they can give.
They join the company and they will be a liability to you because they
are thinking what they can get. They
forgot that if they get into a company, they must produce. Not just think of what they can get but what
they can give, so that by their coming into the company, they can be an asset
to the company. The life principle and
goal is worldly because they are not established in the love of God. See the love of God does not think of getting
or receiving but thinks of giving.
Change your life’s goal. Put your
life’s goal to invest in the other lives.
That is why sometimes I face choices like that. Sometimes we have a sum of money and we think
if we keep it in the bank what’s the use.
I am not thinking about canceling all these things but I am saying that
the major portion of what you have, you must think how can I
use it to invest in souls. So sometimes
we use all we have to publish books so that the books will go and touch lives
and change souls. Sometimes we think of
how to use it in order to invest it into life.
Convert the cash into souls. The
world is trying to convert cash into diamonds.
We are trying to convert time, convert cash, and convert everything into
souls. Souls are the most valuable
investment you can have. If you invest
your life into another life, you have a great reward. Even one life. Mothers, you that are bringing up your
children, if you could bring up one child to be like Billy Graham who win many millions of souls, you will have great reward. The time that you spend on souls, the
children, you give them money is not as valuable as what you put into their
souls because when you put something into their souls, money can come to them
later, they can get money easily, but if you give them money and you don’t
train them in their soul, they will lose everything you give them. The soul is more valuable than anything on
this planet earth. Jesus puts a high
priority on soul.
There is another story in Mark 10 and this was
another man who has great possession.
Mark 10: 17 “Now as He was going out on the road, one came running,
knelt before Him, and asked Him, Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may
inherit eternal life? So Jesus said to
him, Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not
steal, do not bear false witness, do not be defraud, honor your father and
mother. And he answered and said to Him,
Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth. Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and
said to him, One thing you lack: Go your
way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in
heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” Jesus gave him an offer. Verse 22, “But he was sad at this word, and
went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”
Jesus said, come
and follow Me. He was sad and went away
grieved for he had great possessions. He
was too tied to his possessions. Examine
it very carefully. Do you know how he
got rich? Let me tell you how. He kept the commandments. Remember what the bible says in Deut.28, if
you keep My commandments you should be the head and
not the tail. Remember what the Lord
said? This man has said, I have kept all the commandments. Do you know that was how he got rich in the
first place because he kept the commandments of God? But now Jesus is pointing to the purpose of
the commandments and Jesus was saying he has kept all these Old Testament
commandments and now God has blessed him.
God was the one who has blessed him.
But Jesus said in spite of all your great possession, one thing you
lack. Jesus said he had a need. He had a lack. Now if he was today in the 20th
century, Time, Newsweek, Forbes magazines would extol him as the man who is
successful and has no more needs. Jesus
said, “You have a need. In fact you lack
one of the most important things.” Jesus
said, “You have kept up everything for yourself; you have invested all your
time unto all these great possession, that’s how you got more and more.” Jesus said, “You have not invested it in
souls,” and He said, “Sell all you have and give it away. Come and follow Me
and be like Me. Invest your life in
souls. Give yourself to teach
others. Give yourself to disciple
others.” The man was sad because he was
one who love things and use people. He
cannot forget about himself and give himself to other people. He cannot think about all these areas. He loves things and he uses people. Jesus was telling him to use things and love
people.
When he went away
sad, the disciples heard all these things and it must have been Peter. Jesus made this statement in verse 24, “How hard it is
for those who trust in riches to enter the
Do you remember
Aesop’s fable of a little boy who saw the candy and it was inside a
bottle? So the boy reach his hands in
and grabbed hold of a handful and he could not get his hand out of the
jar. He would not let go what he
held. The whole jar is stuck to his
hand. Then somebody come and said to
him, put down that jar and take one by one then you hand can come out. So when he took one by one, he could have
twenty but have it one at a time. So in
the same way, sometimes those who trust in riches and holding on and that
prevent them from going further. But if
they were to let it go, all their needs will be met.
Do you know that man missed his biggest
blessing? Because Peter came to Jesus
after Jesus made that statement and said, what about us? We have given everything. So Peter said in verse 28, see we have left
everything. We have left our
possession. We have left our boats; our
nets and we are here. What about us? Jesus said in verse 29, “Assuredly, I say
to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or
mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall
not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and
mothers and children and lands, with persecution, and in the age to come,
eternal life.”
Do you know the rich man who walked away just missed a
hundredfold blessing? The rich
man heard the first part come and follow Me.
Too bad he didn’t get to hear the verse 30 because verse 30 will only be
spoken to him after he had done the first part.
The rich man that walked away sadly, just imagine, suppose that rich man
had one hundred millions dollars, suppose he gave out everything and followed
Jesus and verse 30 would come true. He
would have one hundred millions times one hundred. It is not given in heaven, as it’s no use in
heaven. Jesus said now in this time he
will be blessed. Do you see that God
never cheat you? God never shortchange
you and God never rob you. That’s the
wonderful thing you can trust God. See
God is not going to tell you to give up everything and then when you are in
need He is not going to help you. God
never shortchange you. In fact let me
put it this way; you can never out give God.
Kathryn Khulman learned that lesson. She found the more she give God keeps giving
more and more to her. Put that in your
life. You can never outgive
God. God is a better giver than anyone
of us. And Jesus is the one who said in
Matt.6: 33 “Seek ye first the
There is something
strange about this principle God gives.
If your eyes are on the money and you run towards money, money runs away
from you. But if your eyes are on
helping people and loving people, money runs to you. Do you know that in the world today they are
discovering that big new companies that are coming out and in many business
magazines, they are discovering that unless the company is concerned about
serving people, that company cannot make good business? That company will not survive. But when the company put the customers first
and in some of these board meetings of the big business company, they put the
word customer there, because they must always think in terms of how they can
benefit the customers. They are having a
tiny little bit of the principle of God.
Those companies that never think of serving others after sometimes
nobody will come to them. Think of those
companies that really give service to people.
People could even feel that this company wants to take care of them. They keep going back to the company for
business. If there is another rival on
the other side where business is business and don’t care about customers, I can
assure you, you won’t go back to that company again. Why, because they don’t show love. They don’t show care. They don’t show service and concern. So the world has discovered a little bit of
that principle. But the bible goes
further than that. The bible not only
talks about service, but talks about loving them with agape love.
Did you know in Deut. 28 it says that when
you keep all the Old Testament commandments, you shall be the head and not the
tail? You shall have all the blessings
of God. And did you know in Romans it
tells you that all the commandments are summed up in one word love your
neighbor. That means when I love my
neighbor, all the blessings of Deut.28 come on me. Deut.28: 1-14 says blessed are you and all
these things, your house, your cattle, your land. You shall be the head and not the tail if you
keep all the commandments of God. There
are so many commandments in the Old Testament.
Then in the New Testament everything is shortened to this. Book of Romans tell you that it’s all summed
up in one word love. Love your
neighbor. That means that when I love my
neighbor, I receive that too. See if a=b
and b=c then a=c. If the blessing of God
are based on keeping the commandments which is b and in keeping the
commandments is by keeping love which is c, then a=c. When I love, all these side benefits will
come.
Paul had made that goal in his life, which
was why he achieved great things and achieved greatness. And a lot of those great men in history have
changed the face of the planet earth both among unbelievers and believers. Great men, I am talking about men who have
given up their life for a goal and a task and a purpose. Part of that goal involved giving their lives
to others. Some give their lives to
change nations. Some give their lives to
bring forth something, an invention or something else. And they get persecuted like anything. Some give their lives in medical discovery to
bring service to mankind. But the only
sad thing I feel is that if only they also knew the love of God. There are some
who knew the love of God and give their lives for some goal of serving mankind
and God has blessed them in this world and in the world to come.
II Cor. 5: 14 “For the love of Christ compels us, because
we judge thus: that if One die for all, then all died.” Paul says the love of Christ is compelling
us. Paul could have an easy life. He could have lived a comfortable life. He was well educated. Brought up under the feet of Gamaliel. Came from
a good social home. But Paul went
through shipwreck; he went through persecution, stoned, beatings, etc. Why did he go through all these? The love of God compels him. Do you know what Paul was after? He was after the human souls. Paul may not have left this earth as a
multimillionaire, which he could have, Paul did not leave behind a house, a
home or great assets in his bank account but Paul left behind churches and
souls that he has found. In heaven he
received a great reward. Jesus when He
left this world He did not leave any physical inheritance for anyone, even the
robe He had was gambled over by the soldiers.
He left no houses. He left no bank account. Jesus could have been a very rich man in the
natural.
|
HOME I INDEX I PRAYER
REQUESTS SITES I LINKS I CONTACT US I TOP |
|
|