Category: Sermons

Getting your soul on fire

Last week we talk about loving God with all of your heart the seat of our affections, passions, and desires.

Placing Him first know that as we do that all of those things are fulfilled in a greater manner than we could ever imagine.

So many things demanding our attention but Hebrews says this…

Hebrews 12:1,2

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God

Jesus challenged all people including each of us with this

Mark 12:28- 30

One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: “Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”

This week we are going to talk about loving God with all of our soul but we must define what a soul is first in order to know what to do with it. What is interesting is in many verses heart and soul are connected and that is because as we will see they are very closely related.

People often confuse the soul and spirit but the Bible separates the two

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So what is our soul?

The best way to describe our soul is it is our personality, the definition of who we are, our identity.

It’s where we make our decisions and choices that ultimately decide our lifestyle and behavior.

To love the Lord with all your soul means to love Him in the way we live, in the choices we make and in the behavior and lifestyle we adopt.

Here are three predominant ways to love God with all our soul.

Love the Lord with all your soul by making Godly choices.

 Our lives are the sum of the choices we make.

Plain and simple. Our choices show what we are committed to and they reflect our core values, defining us and displaying our lifestyle before the world.

We do what we value. Last week we talked about having Christ as our treasure and if we do have Christ as our treasure our choices will mirror that treasure.

Our choices flow from what we treasure most!

Ask yourself: How do I spend my money? What do I do with my time? What kinds of things do I read? What programs do I watch? What do I do for entertainment? Where do I go for relaxation? What things give comfort in difficult times? What kind of friends do I have?

All of these result in choices that demonstrate whether we love God with all our soul.

Love the Lord with all your soul by pursuing obedience to His Word.

Love must be demonstrated. When we keep His commandments, when we live by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God, we are tangibly expressing our love for the Lord.

John 14:15

“If you love me, obey my commandments

I’ve been happily married for over 32 years. In those 32 years I have made decisions based on love that I did not feel like making but I did it anyway. I am obedient to the covenant that I made over 32 years ago to love unconditionally whether I feel like it or not.

That’s why this second part of the First Commandment is vital.

Sometimes we are not going to feel like loving God but we do it out of love for God, nonetheless. In the Kingdom, obedience usually comes first and feelings second.

Our feelings will lie to us and also can even create fear in us. Saul had captured the Amalakites, virtually destroying the entire race (1 Samuel 15). He had the best of intentions in bringing back sheep, goats, cattle and all these things, as an offering to God but he choose instead of being obedient to God’s command to destroy everything he went with his feelings and it cost him the kingdom, not right away mind you. God knew his heart, he brought the animals back not to honor God but to show everyone how great he was, his insecurity was revealed and caused him to make bad choices.

Our choices always impact us but sometimes the real impact is not felt for years. His choice was based on his fear and his devotion was not to God but the way people thought of him, his reputation, his fears

Love the Lord with all your soul by pursuing a life of humility in attitudes and speech.

 Embracing humility is the stage where we can express our love to the Lord. Jesus taught us how to love from a place of meekness, serving us unto death.

Meekness is merely power under control.

A person who is meek understands the authority, privilege, and or power that they walk in but the choose to restrain that power except to promote love. There is both a confidence and security in meekness that enables us to make living choices that bring life to people because we are confident of who we are and whose we are and our lives reflect that through our attitudes and choices. It is always about promoting the Lord’s agenda which ultimately fulfills us because we were created to promote the Lord’s agenda.

This meekness is expressed most dynamically in our attitudes and speech. What we say and how we say it enhances or quenches our ability to love the Lord by the power of the Spirit.

Wrong speech will ultimately affect our spiritual lives and work against our love for the Lord. It also reveals where we are in our walk with Christ. It reveals again, what we treasure

Matthew 12:34,35

For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things.

Proverbs 18:21

Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit

When Jesus is our Great Treasure then our affections are captured. This is how we love God with all of our heart.

When our affections are captured then choices become God-centered and a lifestyle of humility and godliness is born. This is loving God with all your soul.

So what do we need to do?

 

• We must decide to make choices based on Christ at the center. Pray this simple prayer “Lord help me to make wise choices based on you being the center of my life”

 

• Allow the Lord to show you when you are making choices based on fleshly center ideas rather than “God-centered” ideas

 

 

• Recognize that God’s spirit is in you and with you so the greatest power in the universe is living in you and if you choose will cause you to make choices that will fulfill your destiny and purpose.

 

• Read the books of Acts and Judges in particular to take note of when people where making choices based on the Lord’s leading versus their own desires and the price of blessing of both.

 

Two down and two to go. In the next few weeks we will look at how to love God with all our mind and strength.

 

 

The heart wants what the heart wants

Hebrews 12:1,2

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God

As men and women of God our focus needs to always be on Him, looking to Jesus, not to the government, politics, our job or even others to fulfill us but only Jesus.

We want the right things, enough prosperity to have what we need for our families, enough of God to get us to heaven, enough of life to feel fulfilled but what if we don’t know what enough of life is? What if we get caught up in worries about ISIS, poverty, energy consumption, vaccinations, race relationship, the economy, fill in your big worry in the blank with your worry… We have struggles with even good things that distract us from loving Him completely think about the amount of time and energy we sink into so many even good things when in fact If loving God with all of our hearts is not a priority then we cheat ourselves of the greatness that God can do even in and through those things

We are to set or the King James says “fix” our eyes on Jesus above all else…That being said people will quote this scripture to put us in the ball park of what that means

 

Psalm 37:4,5

Delight yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your heart. 5 Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass

 

It is not simply having the Lord as a passing thought or a quick prayer shooting up toward heaven it is a level of commitment that makes our relationship with the Lord real…Jesus put it this way

Mark 12:28- 30

One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29 Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: “Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. 30 And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.”

No one wants a passionless life..Jesus begins by saying love God with all of your heart. The heart is the place of affections, passion, desires.

So how do we go about loving God with all of our hearts?

 

• Our affections determine our devotion – Our heart contains powerful emotions and desires that drive our lives. We need to honest look at what occupies our time, motivates our actions, and shapes our aspirations. Our affections want to cling to someone or something. Wherever these affections are found so will our hearts be.

 

• Our affections and desires follow what we treasure – Whatever we value that is where our heart will be…if it is our career, money, family that is where our heart will be, the irony is that if we make the Lord our number one affection all of this comes to us in abundance as the Lord sees our desires.

 

Matthew 6:21 Wherever your treasure is, there your heart will also be.

 

Jesus gave us the answer here on how to love God with all of our hearts…the heart loves what it treasures

The heart loves what it treasures, ironic that the treasure comes first and the heart follows.

Matthew 13:44

“The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure that a man discovered hidden in a field. In his excitement, he hid it again and sold everything he owned to get enough money to buy the field.

 

In order for our hearts to love Jesus we must first treasure Him completely. Our affections are the outcome of what we treasure.

When we encounter the Lord in all His amazing glory, when we seek Him completely, loving Him with all of our hearts will be the end result

 

• Decide to make Jesus your greatest treasure. Everything else have very little value compared to Him

 

I want us to look at 3:8’s From Philippians 3:8 and Ephesians 3:8

“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ”

“To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ”

Here we see a man who found Christ to be a treasure above all else. The presence and glory of God is so fulfilling, meaningful and powerful that everything pales in comparison. When other things take precedents, when we divert our attention away from the Lord then our love grows cold and the very desires of our heart go unfulfilled. The greatest treasure in our lives is no longer Christ but has been replaced by someone or something else.

 

• The Love of God shines through us as we learn to love Him with all of our hearts and we impact the world around us rather than the world around us impacting us.

 

2 Corinthians 3:18

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord

 

As we have pursue Him his glory naturally shines through us, we are naturally part of the vine and the life pours through us.

Paul says that this when our passion, affection, desire becomes Him even though we are human His power, life and love shine through us to change our world

2 Corinthians 4: 6,7

For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ 7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.

 

So what do we need to do?

 

• We have to decide to pursue Him. Just pray it to the Lord, “Jesus I long for You to be my ultimate treasure, help me and give me power to do so!”  Pray this often through out the day.

 

• Start with the Bible. Open it and search out what it says about the glory of who Jesus is and what He has done.  If you don’t know where to start, just go to the Gospels.

 

 

• Make adjustments. What is it you are going to do daily that will allow you to grow into this reality. Write it down. Schedule it.

 

• Be with Him.  He delights in you. He wants to be with you and reveal Himself to you. He enjoys you! Set time aside to be with Him only.