Undeserved..EXTRAVAGANT LOVE
Psalms 95:6-7 MSG
So come, let us worship: bow before him, on your knees before God, who made us! Oh yes, he’s our God, and we’re the people he pastures, the flock he feeds. Drop everything and listen, listen as he speaks: “Don’t turn a deaf ear as in the Bitter Uprising, As on the day of the Wilderness Test, when your ancestors turned and put me to the test. For forty years they watched me at work among them, as over and over they tried my patience. And I was provoked—oh, was I provoked! ‘Can’t they keep their minds on God for five minutes? Do they simply refuse to walk down my road?’ Exasperated, I exploded, ‘They’ll never get where they’re headed, never be able to sit down and rest.’”
Has your patience ever been tried?
This scripture..gives you just a little insight as to maybe what God thinks..
Funny thing is..here we are thousands of years later, and mankind is more hardheaded now than ever...And it makes you wonder if God still thinks the same thing.
As I observe in my daily routine..I can see the same thing
Can’t they keep their minds on God for five minutes?
Why do they simply refuse to walk down His road?’
They’ll never get where they’re headed, never be able to sit down and rest.
It's no wonder why there is so much stress and unrest in the world
And when you wonder why God is so patient with us..
Only One answer comes to mind..
Because Of His unending Extravagant Love for us!
Only Gods Love could endure so much..and receive so little in return.
Love that...
Created the world
Created mankind
Created the Cross, forgiveness, favor, mercy and the way of relationship to Him
Love created a plan..the plan of salvation
Which entails every good thing in it..every promise..every declaration
He ever put down on paper..
And whether you chose to accept it or not..
Does not diminish His immense love He will
Always have for you..
1st John 4:7-10 MSG.
7-10. My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love, —so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about— not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’'ve done to our relationship with God
This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him.
Sad thing is..there are more people in existence than ever at any time in history..
And it seems as though..never fewer living the life God has designed for them..
Unconditional Love, comes from God and the love God offers, is the only thing that can fill the void in our lives
The “I just know and feel like there’s something missing in my life” void..
the void that everyone has...but not everyone is willing to admit!
They fill it with everything else but God..
And they just bounce around hitting one wall of disappointment after another
After another, after another..
Their condition is Miserable at best..but they just can't seem to find their way to the forgiveness and freedom that God freely
Offers to all will accept it!
While you might find temporary fulfillment of love through people and material things and self gratification..
there is no true fulfillment in life without the love of God.
you can't earn it, buy it, or win it, yet it flows freely..nonstop to all who will receive it
He does not love you because of who you are..
if He loved us because of who we and what we truly are, would He even want to love us?
Isaiah 64:6 NLT
We are all infected and impure with sin.
When we display our righteous deeds,
they are nothing but filthy rags.
Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall,
and our sins sweep us away like the wind.
That's what we are..When we display our so called righteous deeds,
they are nothing but filthy rags.
Nobody, except for God, could still love us..in that condition
because His Love isn’t based on
Anything to do with us at all..
Thank God, that He loves us, because of who He is and not because of who we are!....and we can find sweet rest in that very fact,
That is the peace..that passes all understanding. Amen?
Thank goodness..His Love for us, is based on Him alone and has nothing to do with us!
God loved us, long before we ever loved Him, He loved us before we ever were anything at all..He loved us before the world was created
and nothing can ever change His mind about Loving us,
He is the only true constant in this world...He never changes! Amen!
Rom 8:38-39 “MSG.
I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
Nothing can separate us from His Love, God is omnipresent, He has already been everywhere time will ever be,
That means His Love has already been there to,
His Love is waiting for us everywhere, every moment we will ever be,
to enjoy today, tomorrow and forever!
When we blow our top..He still Loves us
When we act like we know it all..He still Loves us..
Whether were on the mountain top..
Or down in the valley
His Love is right there and everywhere
Inbetween..to comfort and lift us up!
God loves us...Because He is Love
God hates sin, but loves the sinner!
No angels or demons can do anything about it, to change the fact of God‘s Great Love!
Not even the whole worlds sin, past and forever more, is more than Gods love can withstand!
they all, are powerless to change His love for us,
Romans 5:6-8 MSG.
6-8. Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn’t, and doesn’t, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready. And even if we hadn’t been so weak, we wouldn’t have known what to do anyway. We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice. But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him.
With absolutely nothing to give in return from us..
while we were of no use whatever to him...He still Loves us!
We can be and should be confident in the life that God has given us today,
not because we love Him, but because He loves us!
That fact alone, is more than enough reason for His Grace to be called Amazing!
That’s why there is complete rest in Gods love, you don’t have to act, or pretend to be something, or someone everyone will like..as you do in the world, or in the cliques of life
When it comes to God, you can be yourself..He wants you to be yourself
and He wants you to know..He will still Love you, just the way you are!
You don't have to change yourself before you come to know Him, because once you come to know Him, the more you will change
Automatically because you know Him!
Not from the outside in..but from the inside out!
It's not about right living, because none of us can live right..
it's all about right believing!
The word says it, but human nature has a hard time accepting the unending easiness of it.
There are a lot of people in this world, in fact there are millions of people who have never experienced the Love of God,
but what they don‘t know is, even though their not enjoying it, doesn‘t change the fact that they still are loved by their creator
and that God is patiently waiting to pour His Love out on them, the moment they become aware of His Love!
Its up to us, to let them know about the abundance of Gods Love that He has for them.
The world around us, will never know the Love of God, unless we share it with them!
It's not enough that we know, God expects us to bare fruit!
Ephesians 3:14-19 MSG.
14-19. My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit— not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength— that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.
You can tell from reading this..that this is something that Paul really wanted everyone to get ahold of..
It was Paul’s prayer and it should be ours as well, we need to pray that the blinders would be removed,
from all who are blinded from knowing the truth about Gods Love in their lives.
The world needs to know, the amazing truth about Gods Love,
*Even if you have nothing to offer Him,
*Even if you’ve never done anything to deserve it,
*Even if you feel like you’ve ruined every opportunity you will ever have to ever receive it and are not even worthy of it!
It doesn’t matter, God still takes great pleasure in you, you are His creation, His masterpiece..you have great worth to Him!
The Love of God is like, having access to The whole worlds water supply for a glass of water,
That’s how much value God puts on one persons worth,
He is willing to give everything He has just for you,
In fact He already did, John 3:16 NKJ
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.
We will probably never realize the true extent of His love for us, until we get to heaven one day.
One thing we can be so thankful for here on earth is, the fact that our name is covered by the word, whosoever! Praise God!
And we know this...that when they asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was,
it was Love..it was all about love..it's still after all this time
All about Love!
Mark 12 :29-31 MSG.
29-31. Jesus said, “The first in importance is, ‘Listen, Israel: The Lord your God is one; so love the Lord God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence and energy.’ And here is the second: ‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’ There is no other commandment that ranks with these.”
How will we win our friends, family and neighbors to the Lord?
The answer is somewhat easy..but then again hard at times..
With the Love of the Lord being displayed in our lives, shining through into to their lives!
‘Love others as well as you love yourself.’.thats the hard one, huh?
Don't you know..my neighbors are hard to love?
Ya..and it's funny but they say the same thing about you!
1st John 4:17-19 NKJ
17. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world.
18. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
19. We love Him because He first loved us.
God wants us to rest assured that in this life that He has given us!
There is nothing that’s been left out, I challenge you
to try to find something that God left out..
You can rest with the assurance..that He thought of everything we would ever have need of and included it with His Love, He gave on Calvary. Amen?
Every promise He ever made to us, has been guaranteed by it!
Vs 17 tells us..that we have the same Love that He has for His own son!
It's amazingly clear.. It says "as He is, so are we in this world”"
Not maybe someday in the future..but today we have His promise to proclaim over our lives..right here In the sweet now and now! Praise God!
He not only Loved us enough to send His Son to us to redeem us,
but Loved us enough to give us access to everything Jesus has as well, when we establish a relationship with Him!
All made possible by the finished work of Calvary..
That Love made possible..
Do you know Him today?
Are you living in His Extravagant Love Today?
If not..why not step into the light of His Marvelous Love today
Ephesians 5:1-2 MSG
1-2 Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.
Illus. A true story that speaks about extravagant love
A nine-year-old boy who lived in a rural town in Tennessee. His house was in a poor area of the community. A church had a bus ministry that came knocking on his door one Saturday afternoon.
The kid came to answer the door and greeted the bus pastor and asked if his parents were home and the small boy told him that his parents take off every weekend and leave him at home to take care of his little brother.
The bus pastor couldn’t believe what the kid said and asked him to repeat it. The youngster gave the same answer and the bus pastor asked to come in and talk with him. They went into the living room and sat down and The bus pastor asked the kid,
"Where do you go to church?" The young boy surprised the visitor by replying, "I’ve never been to church in my whole life." The bus pastor thought to himself about the fact that his church was less than three miles from the child’s house.
"Are you sure you have never been to church?" He asked again. "I sure haven’t", came his answer. Then the bus pastor said, "Well, son, more important than going to church, have you ever heard the greatest love story ever told?" and then he proceeded to share the Gospel with this little nine year old boy.
The young lad’s heart began to be tenderized and at the end of the bus pastor’s story he. asked if the boy wanted to receive this free gift from God. The youngster exclaimed, "You bet The kid and the bus pastor got on their knees and the lad invited Jesus into his little heart and received the free gift of salvation.
They both stood up and the bus pastor asked if he could pick the kid up for church the next morning. "Sure," the nine old replied.
The bus pastor got to the house early the next morning and the boys got on the bus and ate a donut for breakfast on their way to church. Keep in mind that this boy had never been to church before.
The church was a real big one. The little kid just sat there, clueless of what was going on. A few minutes into the service these tall unhappy guys walked down to the front and picked up some wooden plates. One of the men prayed and the kid with utter fascination watched them walk up and down the aisles. He still didn’t know what was going on.
All of a sudden like a bolt of lightning it hit the kid what was taking place. These people must be giving money to Jesus. He then reflected on the free gift of life that he had received just twenty-four hours earlier. He immediately searched his pockets, front and back, and couldn’t find a thing to give Jesus.
By this time the offering plate was being passed down his aisle and with a broken heart he just grabbed the plate and held on to it. He finally let go and watched it pass on down the aisle. He turned around to see it passed down the aisle behind him. And then his eyes remained glued on the plate as it was passed back and forth, back and forth all the way to the rear of the sanctuary.
Then he had an idea. This little nine-year-old boy, in front of God and everybody, got up out of his seat. He walked about eight rows back, grabbed the usher by the coat and asked to hold the plate one more time.
Then he did the most astounding thing I have ever heard of. He took the plate, sat it on the carpeted church floor and stepped into the center of it. As he stood there, he lifted his little head up and said, "Jesus, I don’t have anything to give you today, but just me. I give you me"
That's the way we need to be..willing to give
The most Extravagant thing we have..
And not hold nothing back in reserve..
Willing to give ourselves
Let's pray..
