(Conclusion) "Tell Me What I Need to Do and I Will Do IT"

I have been focusing on loving God, yourself, and your neighbor. The last area of love I want to discuss is, Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ  also loved the church and gave Himself for her...(Ephesians 5:25, NKJV)  Christ gave himself for the church.  What is the church? The Greek word used in the New Testament was ekklesia, meaning assembly, congregation or called out.  We read in Acts 2:47  about those who obeyed what Peter told them to do in Acts 2:38 and it says, And the Lord added to the church (called out, assembly or congregation) daily those who were being saved.


We have just read above of Christ's love for these people.  He gave Himself for them. He also taught them how to live to please God the Father and also how to love their fellowman.  Christ wanted husbands to love their wives the same way.  We are to love our wives so much, that we would be willing to die protecting them, as Christ died protecting the called out from being spiritually lost.


What are the effects of Christ dying for the lost? The sacrifice needed to be perfect and we did not have a perfect one to give. He did it for us on Calvary.  He taught us how to live in this fallen world with all it's pain and suffering.  He taught us how to love and to love even our enemies.  These early Christians had such a faith they were willing to die for it. The good news spread quickly to other lands.


What about husband's loving their wives in this manner?  What impact would this have on our country? Would the family structure, as God would have it, be stronger than it is today? Would the children in our country be better off, if their dads loved their moms the way Christ loved His church? If the husband also loved her soul and wanted her to go to heaven when she passed from this life, would the children also reap great benefits from this love?

You and I know some husbands do not love their wives the way Christ loves the Church.  Satan has used his deceptions to replace that love with lust of the flesh and lust of the eyes.  He does not want the family complete, as God would have it. Satan wants our families in disarray.  What kind of cause and effect does Satan's way have on our country?  Looked at the TV lately?


There is one thing I especially want to point out. Go back to the verse, Ephesians 5:25. What stands out in this verse? How about the, Husbands love your wives, part? (Husbands, translated from the Greek word 'aner'. A masculine noun meaning a male) (wives, translated from the Greek word gyne. A feminine noun meaning a woman of any age) By the inspiration from the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul is telling the Ephesian husbands (males) to love their wives (any age female).  I believe the inspired scriptures make it clear what a married couple looks like.  Not male married to male nor female married to female. Any other views on this must first, cut this scripture out of the Bible.



We have discussed in this post and the previous two, a solution or prescription to get our country back living and obeying God's word. We have talked about loving God, our neighbors, ourselves, and if we are married men, our wives.  This is just like the Doctor prescribing me three different medications. I will not get better if I only take one.  I can't just love my wife and not love God, nor can I just love myself and not my neighbor. It takes all three combined for this to work.
If I love God with all my heart, soul, and mind, then loving the others should come naturally.


What about you? Do you love God like Christ tells us to love Him? Do you love your neighbors as yourself? Men, if you are married, do you love your wife as much as Christ loves the Church?
Why should we love God and Christ? We love Him, because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19, NKJV)


Our country is in the biggest mess I have ever seen in my lifetime.  Will our grandchildren inherit an America that has lost its love for God, each other, and the sanctity of marriage? Yes it will if we don't do something.  What is that something we need to do? Husbands what do you do if you have not loved your wives and have forsaken them? What do you do if you have hatred in your heart for your fellow man? What if you have lived your life not loving God the way He has commanded? What do you do?  You do the same thing those who hated God's Son and murdered Him, by the cruelest execution known to man, did. Repent. Be sorry for not loving the way God wants you to.  In Acts chapter 2 they believed that Jesus was the Son of God, whom they had just a few days before crucified. They repented of it and were baptized for the remission of their sins. We read later in that same chapter that God added to the church daily those who were being saved.


We all have sinned and in some ways made a mess of our lives.  We can repent of what we have done and do like they did in Acts chapter 2:38 and then in verse 47 they were added to the church daily those who were being saved.
Some of our mistakes we can't go back and correct, but we can start today making a new beginning, working for a better ending. The greatest attribute of God's love is His forgiveness.  We don't need to let the Devil deceive us out of receiving ours.


I listened to a sermon the other day by Kenneth Grizzell. He brought to my attention 2 Kings 20:16-19. King Hezekiah was told by Isaiah what God had said to him.  He said the days would be coming when all that is in your house and what your fathers have accumulated will be carried to Babylon and nothing would be left. He also said, "And they shall take away some of your sons who will descend from you, whom you will beget; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon". The next verse,19, is the one deserving our attention. King Hezekiah then said to Isaiah, The word of the Lord which you have spoken is good! For he said, Will there not be peace and truth at least in my days?  What is he saying? It sounds like to me he is saying, well it won't happen in my days. So he is not going to do anything about it.  He seems to not care about the future fate of his sons and grandsons, only relieved at least, it won't happen when I am alive.


I have given some solutions using love, that if applied, will begin to change our nation. All of them, and there are many more, are from God's word.  We can sit by and have the attitude as Hezekiah, "At least it won't happen in our lifetime" or we can get back into God's word, on our knees in prayer, seeking and doing what God has said, to bring this country back once again, One Nation Under God, and mean it.  If not, what do you think the future holds for our children and grandchildren.


Are you a Joshua saying, But as for me and my house, we will serve the lord or are you a Hezekiah, at least it won't happen while I am alive? One choice requires an active faith and the other requires doing nothing.  God always gives us a choice.  To do nothing, is to be like Hezekiah.


After reading, please send me your comments.  Send them to rhepler52@gmail.com or post comments on facebook.




We can choose to begin a new life with God today and it will give new life and hope to our grandchildren.  Thank you for reading this series on love.  I do believe love is one of many solutions God has given us to be able to live in this fallen world.




Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. (John 15:13,NKJV)


And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:3, NKJV)


Rick

(Continued from last week) "Tell Me What I Need to Do and I Will Do It"

(Continued from last week)
We learn to love by studying God's word.  We learn to love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)  The only way I know about God and that He loves me is by faith.  This faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. (Romans 10:17)  If you never read the word of God you will never realize how much God loves you.  You will never read verses like Romans 5:8, But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.(NKJV)  Satan does not want you to read that one.  He wants you to blame God for all of your troubles and to never learn of God's love.
 
Has Satan already pulled this deception on you?  Are you sure? Are you reading God's word to see how much He loves you?  How can you love Him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength if you do not know Him and believe in Him?  This is our first step in getting our hearts prepared to love.  Could you make it through the day not knowing God loves you?

The second greatest command is, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:39, NKJV)  Do you know what it feels like to be loved? Unconditionally?  Many of us have been blessed to have been loved from birth, by both family and friends. Even sometimes, unconditionally.  Sometimes I take this for granted. I have to stop and realize many in our society today have not experienced the love of a loving mother and father.  Neither have they experienced the love of a church family.  When you were a child did you ever seek refuge in your mother's or dad's arms?


Now, what about loving our neighbors? Who is my neighbor anyway? I looked the word up in Strong's Lexicon.  Neighbor: a friend, any other person and, according to Christ, anyone who we have chance to meet. (Please read Luke 10:25-37)   So my neighbor is anyone and God commands me to love anyone whom I may have contact with. Although there are many areas of love, I am only going to use one area, loving the soul of my neighbor as do my own soul.  God wants us to love Him, our neighbors, and everyone else.  Satan would be pleased if we didn't love at all.


Mankind is self destructive when he chooses to abandon love in his life, either willingly or ignorantly. Innocent people get hurt when this happens.  A good example is the riots in Ferguson, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland.  The store owners had nothing to do with any of it, but their livelihood was destroyed in one night by selfish and unloving people.  The opposite of love is hate, and hate was clearly shown by their actions.  How did they let hate displace love in their hearts?  They allowed something, only God is to handle, to enter into their hearts and that is vengeance. (Please read Romans 12:9-20)


When we let God handle the vengeance, we do not have to concern ourselves with it, which keeps us out of a world of trouble. In this world, God has set up governments to carry out His vengeance. And, on Judgment Day, He will carry it out with flaming fire. (Romans 13:1-7) (2 Thessalonians 1:5-9) Man seeks vengeance when he is selfish and doesn't care about anyone but himself.  If someone does something to him or takes his things away, he wants to seek vengeance on them.


Notice Christ says in verse 27 of Luke chapter 10, as yourself.  This indicates to me that I am to love myself. If I love myself, I will naturally want the best for myself, both physically and spiritually.  If I truly love God as He commanded, I will want what He wants, and He wants me and you back in a relationship with Him as in the beginning, before man sinned.  He has and is still using His love to get us back.


I have often thought that loving myself was taking care of all of my needs physically, emotionally, and materially.  I have spent much time the last 60 years focusing on these, worrying about them, and struggling to supply them. Then I realized I am a living soul. According to what Jesus said I am to do in Matthew 22:37, I have a soul, heart, and mind to love God and I am to do it with all three of them. I started thinking about the three and the only one of the three that will still be in existence in a 1000 years is my soul. Now follow me closely.  I have given more attention to my fleshly body, which I can see and will be decayed in the ground in 100 years, than I have my eternal soul, which I can't see but God tells me I have one. My conclusion is, I need to pay more attention to my soul  and love it more, because my soul is what God wants to redeem and live with Him.


Jesus tells us in Matthew 10:28 not to fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. He says rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.  God does not want us to perish, but that we would all come to repentance.(2 Peter 3:9)  This includes me and my neighbors.
I am to love myself, by loving God with all my heart, soul, and mind.  If I do this, I will search His word to learn how to live in a way pleasing to Him.  I will put His kingdom first in my life, trusting Him to add  all the things I have need of. (Matthew 6:33) Loving Him, obeying Him, and serving Him, will allow my soul to be told by the Lord when He comes again, well done thou good and faithful servant.(Matthew 25:21,23)


How will loving myself in this way help our country today? I will have God's Spirit and love you in a way that the world has never dreamed of.  I will have God's Spirit dwelling in me producing love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. I will be your friend in time of trouble and a good neighbor.(Galatians 5:22)


The opposite of this is, if I love the world I will want to fulfill the lust of my flesh, and I will do the works of the flesh instead of the works of the Spirit. (1 John 2:15-16) (Galatians 5:16-21) Living for my flesh produces what we all see on the nightly news. I don't like it and I talk about how terrible it is, and they ought to do something about it.  If I am a friend of the world, I am an enemy of God and part of the problem. (James 4:4) But if I love my soul as God wants me to, I begin to be a part of the solution God has for us, to be where we need to be.


How will my being a faithful Christian help my neighbor?  I can help supply them with temporal things by giving them a few moments of peace for their fleshly bodies, or I can show them the hope that I have in Jesus that is eternal life. (1 Peter 3:15)  I do not want to be lost in the place prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matthew 25:41) Notice the place was not prepared for man, but for the devil and his angels. Those who are rebellious toward God and do not His will are the cursed that will be placed in everlasting fire. I do not want my neighbors in that place either.  I am going to confess to you I haven't always felt that way.


There was  a time, I did not care about the souls of everyone. Those who didn't think like me, live like me, or look like me, I thought deserved to be lost. I was arrogantly self righteous. I was following all the rules. I checked my list and I was okay.  Then I read how much God loved the world, the price paid by our Lord and savior Jesus Christ for the whole world, and how man was created in the image of God.  The more I read the more ashamed I became. I read about the love for the lost by Paul and Peter.  I needed to remind myself of who Christ died for.  It was me and everyone else.


I can best love my neighbor by telling them the good news of Jesus.  This is the love that never will fail. (1 Corinthians 13:13)  I struggle each day with this life, but I do it with God by my side. I have neighbors that struggle each day to just survive.  Some have no hope of ever having any peace.  Some have turned to drugs and sexual immorality just to have a moment of fleshy pleasure.  They can for a moment forget the mess their lives are in. Some are living lives of crime to feed a habit or just to get by.  How do you feel when you see them or hear about them on the news.  We do not like them.  Worse than that, we don't love them.  We think their sins are worse than our sins. Their sins hurt people.  They act terrible and irresponsible.  We think they are useless and are a drain on society.
You want to know why they are this way? THEY CAN'T SEE HIM!!!


In John 14:8 Phillip asked Jesus to show him the Father. Jesus told Him, He who has seen Me has seen the Father. What does that mean to us? Go to John 14:12. Jesus says, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also.  Christ says that we are the light of the world, and we need to let our light shine before men to see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14,16)


I say I am a Christian, but if my neighbor cannot see Christ living in me, I have hidden the light God has given me to shine for Him.  My neighbor deserves the opportunity to know God's love as I do.
I have rich neighbors and poor neighbors. I have neighbors whose bodies and lives have been ravaged by sin.  Many, both rich and poor, never attend a worship service, read God's word, or even pray.  You also have the same kind of neighbors.  They have been deceived by the Devil to be friends with the world.  They do not know that this is enmity with God. (James 4:1-6) Many have been taught the lie that everyone, no matter what they have done, goes to heaven when they die.


How do I know this? I have seen on the news in recent months the family and friends of those who were killed by police, making statements saying, their loved ones are now an angel in heaven looking down on them.  I have also been to funerals, knowing the deceased never worshipped God, read His word, and he/she lived like the world. The preacher would say, he/she is in heaven looking down because he/she believed in the Lord.  That is deception with an eternal consequence.  I love them enough to tell them what God says, and not what man says. Don't you take my word for it either.(James 2:19)


Read what Christ has to say about it. (Matthew 7:21-23) I love myself enough to want the truth and I love my neighbor the same way. Am I your enemy because I tell you the truth. I tell you this truth in love. (Ephesians 4:12-15)


Reading what Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23 got my attention. John tells us in 1 John 3:18 to love in deed and truth. If I love my neighbor as myself, I want him/her to know the truth and hopefully obey it. I do not want them to be eternally lost.  Look at the love and passion Christ had for the lost.  Also, read how Paul and Peter loved the lost. If I profess to be a Christian, I should have this same love for the lost.


My little world around me needs to see God living in me, and not me living in and doing the things of this world. Will this kind of love for my neighbor make a difference in the world? When I truly found out how much God loves me, it made a difference in me.  How about you?  Good! Let's start today loving our neighbors as ourselves.


Christ has shown us the solutions to the problems we are having in our country today. (Matthew 22:36-40)  Teaching ourselves and our neighbors about God's love and His plan of salvation for all humanity, will give peace to the poverty stricken, hope to those who are suffering in their sins, and a pleasing faith in God, to overcome any trial this life has to offer.  We will be able to sing the hymn of faith, as the prophet Habakkuk. (Habakkuk 3:17-19) Obeying God's word will give us a peace of God, which passes all understanding. (Philippians 4:4-7)


I am  having good results with the solutions my doctor gave me to get my blood sugar down from 300.  I did what she told me to do. No buts or questions.  I am just doing it. I checked it 2 days ago and it was 93 instead of the danger level of 300. Also, I weighed today and I am 212 pounds instead of the 224 pounds. Her solutions are working, because I am doing what she told me to do.  My physical body is better for doing it. I am continually being careful about my diet and increasing my exercising.  I feel better.


Each day I search God's word for what He wants me to do in this life.  I also pray, trusting He will supply all my needs.  The blessings in Christ keep coming each day.  My neighbors will, See Him, living in me, if I continue living for Him.  His solutions will work and do not cost us anything.  The price has already been paid on the cross.  This is far from man's approach to the solutions we need. We think if we get a new set of politicians and more costly government programs with more government regulations our problems will be solved. Really? It hasn't worked.


It is not hard to love yourself and your neighbor as yourself.  You just have to have something to stir you up to do it.  Like when the doctor told me, Rick, you are a diabetic, this stirred me up to take action on what she told me to do.


In all of my writings, I am trying to stir up myself and my neighbors to do the good works of God.  I truly hope that something I write may, stir you up, to desire God and be with Him every day by reading what He wants you to and praying to Him with your gratitude and petitions.
With God, we together can make a difference in our country.  Without Him, it is very obvious, we will never improve.  Let's stir one another up to do the good works of God.(Hebrews 10:24)


 From this day forward, let us live in the solution instead of living in the problem.  The ending will be so much better if we do.
                                                                                                     Rick Hepler
Please share today's post with your church and friends. Your comments are always welcomed.  You can go to www.rhepler52@gmail.com to leave your comments.  Also consider reading my books along with your Bibles to increase the faith of your children and grandchildren.  You will find my books, The Heart Behind the Stone: Develop a Giant Slaying Heart and 123 Tips for My Grandchildren and Yours on www.amazon.com.  Thank you for telling your friends and recommending my blog and books to your friends.  It is really helping, and I greatly appreciate it.


Thank you,
Rick