Sermon Central
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God Loves Me Series
Contributed by Alex Galsim on Mar 1, 2012 (message contributor)
Summary: This secret of knowing God's love will take away fears,worries,loneliness and other negative emotions , it will strengthen our faith, helps us love other effortlessly, and fill us with the fullness of God.
Jesus Loves Me This I Know
Eph 3:17-19
If we ask ourselves if God loves us, generally we say YES, but our experiences proves otherwise. We feel lonely, depressed, discouraged, and defeated. Every one of these negative emotions would be turned to positive by a proper revelation of God's love for us.
We say God loves us but why are our lives not change. There is more than just a superficial knowledge that God loves us.
I. GOD’S LOVE MUST BE AN EXPERIENTIAL REVELATION
"that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Eph. 3:17-19).
In verse 19, Paul said as we experience God's love, which is superior to mere knowledge of God's love, then we would be filled with all the fullness of God. What a statement! Are you lacking in any area of your life? If so, you lack a revelation of God's love. Experiencing God's love equals fullness.
Prayer of Paul to the Ephesian believers.
They are already rooted and established in God's love.
1. That Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith.
2. That they may comprehend, realize,understand the love of God.
God's love have length,wide,height, depth
Notice in verse 18 that God's love isn't just one-dimensional. There is height, depth, length, and breadth to it. Many Christians only see God's love as they would see a painting, in one-dimension. They've never seen the multi- dimensional reality of God's love.
You may be overwhelmed with God's love but your just scratching the surface
3. They may know the love of God which passeth knowledge
Not just a natural understanding.
We must know the love of God as an experiencial knowledge
II. THE RESULT OF KNOWING GOD'S LOVE EXPERIENCIALLY
1. We will be filled with the fullness of God
“…that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God" (Eph. 3:17-19).
In the past we were thought in order to be filled with God we must:
Fast for 40days.
Speak in tongues many times .
Read many chapters of the Bible.
But this verse tells us we must realize the love of God, then we will be
filled with the fullness of God
God is love, to be full of love is to be full of God.
2. We will be free from negative emotions
1 John 4:18 says that perfect love casts out fear.
If you're afraid of facing a person or a situation in your life, God's love can help you put your fears to rest.
Loneliness, depression, discouragement, worries, envy, hatred will all vanish away when you start to enjoy God’s love.
3. Our faith will work effortlessly
Galatians 5:6 says faith works by love.
That means love is the driving force behind our faith. Remove or diminish love, and faith ceases to be what it should be. Many of us try hard to believe when we should be seeking a greater revelation of God's love for us. Then, faith would just naturally work.
4. We can love others naturally.
We can't give away what we don't have. If we receive a full revelation of God's love for us, it becomes easy to love others with the love that we have received.
III. PROBLEMS OF CHRISTIANS ABOUT THE LOVE OF GOD
1. Basing the love of God to my performance
God's love for us is unconditional. That is, God doesn't love us because of some virtue we possess. God loves us because "God is love" (1 john 4:8), not because we are lovely.
Religion is one of the biggest pro-pagators of the conditional-love-of-God lie. Most "christian churches" teach that God's love for us is conditional, based on our performance. If we pray, go to church, pay our tithes, etc., then the Lord loves us and answers our prayers; but if we fail, then the lord won't answer our prayers.That's not true.
2. Not understanding/realizing the love of God
1 John 4:16
16And we know (understand, recognize, are conscious of, by observation and by experience) and believe (adhere to and put faith in and rely on) the love God cherishes for us. God is love, and he who dwells and continues in love dwells and continues in God, and God dwells and continues in him.
IV. CONCLUSION
We all need a greater revelation of God's unconditional love for us! I believe that if you open up your heart, the Lord will grant you revelation about his love and it will change your life.
