True Love

What is true love, what you say, it’s the remedy for most of the ills today.  Why do we need it every day, because it will chase the blues away.  When the blues sneak around in those trying times, trying to find a person where it might hide, love is the thing to stem the tide, to tell the blues to take a ride!!  When love comes around and touches your life, in the form of a lovely beautiful wife, when it stirs you up in the prime of your life, it will help you with sorrow, pain and strife.  It will give you joy and that is true when true love reaches inside of you!!  If you’d like a love that can set you free like the birds in the air and the bumble bees, look no further than the cross you see, the cross on the hill of Calvary.  Jesus is the answer for you and me, the love that He has, has set many free.  And to tell you the truth, when He sets you free, you will be free indeed, you can take that from me!!  

Let me tell you a story about a prodigal son who took his inheritance and started to run.  Thinking he’d have the time of his life; the problem was he should have thought twice.  In the end it didn’t turn out to be the way this young man thought it would be. Then he decided that he would go home instead of trying to face this all alone.  His dad saw him afar and ran out to meet him cause he wanted to greet him, he hugged him and kissed him, may have told him he missed him, what a wonderful reunion it was.  His Dad fell on his neck and kissed him.  

Please read Luke 15:18-24, “I’ll get up and go to my father, and I’ll say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your presence. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired workers.’ And he got up and went to his own father. But while he was still far away, his father saw him and felt compassion. He ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your presence. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it! Let’s celebrate with a feast! For this son of mine was dead and has come back to life—he was lost and is found!’ Then they began to celebrate.”

This demonstrates the love God the Father has for us.  This is an unconditional love.  I will be honest, like I normally am, I have a hard time understanding this kind of love; just think about Father God loving those who hated Him.  He also loved the ones that killed his Son, torturing Him before they put Him on the cross to kill Him.  That kind of love has to be supernatural.  This story truly demonstrates God the Father’s love for a prodigal.

Now think about the 100 sheep, another parable that Jesus spoke about.  If one of the sheep goes astray, the shepherd leaves the others and looks for the one who went astray until he finds it.  He will put it on his shoulders, rejoicing and when he gets home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost.

Now please read Luke 15:7, “I tell you, in the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over the ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”  This shows how much God loves a repentant sinner!!  I tell you the truth, it bothers me when I hear a sermon where repentance is not spoken of and then the altar call is given and no mention of repentance or any explanation of what repentance even means.  One of the first things that Jesus spoke of when he started his ministry was repentance and John the Immerser’s baptism was for repentance also, please read Matthew 4:17, “From then on, Yeshua began to proclaim, ‘Turn away from your sins, for the kingdom of heaven is near.’”

Now please read Matthew 3:4-12, “Now John wore clothing from camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem was going out to him, and all Judea and all the region around the Jordan. Confessing their sins, they were being immersed by him in the Jordan River. But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his immersion, he said to them, ‘You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Therefore produce fruit worthy of repentance; and do not think that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’! For I tell you that from these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. Already the axe is laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire!’ As for me, I immerse you in water for repentance. But the One coming after me is mightier than I am; I am not worthy to carry His sandals. He will immerse you in the Ruach ha-Kodesh and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He shall clear His threshing floor and gather His wheat into the barn; but the chaff He shall burn up with inextinguishable fire.”

Today we are not baptized for the forgiveness of sins, or saved that way, but it should demonstrate an outward appearance of an inward change that the Lord has made in our lives.  “It is by grace you have been saved through faith and not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not based on deeds so that no one may boast!!”  Ephesians 2:8-9.

We owe it all to Jesus, God’s beloved Son, for willingly laying His life down and allowing Himself to be crucified.  The Lion of Judah became the sacrificial Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  A man who had no sin became sin for us.  Only through trusting in Him and being covered and washed in His precious blood can we be saved!!  Just like Ephesians 2:8-9 says!!

So, if you’re willing to turn from your sins and truly repent, having a change of heart and mind, turning to the Lord confessing your sins and forsaking your sins, you can be washed and cleansed of your sins and experience the new birth, what is called being born-again!!  I hope if you read this and have not repented, that you will make that choice today, you will not be sorry!!  May the good Lord bless you and may this be a help and encouragement and a blessing to you!!