Choosing Love: The Heart of Discipleship

"it doesn't come naturally though because the little child very soon discovers that it has a will and usually the parent soon thereafter discovers they have one if they didn't know it already and so then we have the conflicts of will and the natural course is for those to become more and more destructive so we need to understand that it does not come naturally and we need to be not surprised about that we need not to be think how astonishing that I should be unloving no given who we are it's very natural for us to be unloving see we have to understand where the natural weight of things falls so that we can deal with it truthfully so if I'm going to be loving I have to choose to receive love" [00:14:15]

"and it isn't just I can't do that it's really perhaps deeply I haven't decided to be that kind of person and here as in other areas like becoming a disciple of Jesus choice is of central importance and if I were to ask you this evening have you chosen to receive first Corinthians 13 kind of love what would be your honest answer working on it good sometimes will get you there it'll get you there it'll get you there but we have to choose now see we're apt to go for the first part of first Corinthians 13 and be put off by that because it lists that we think is wonderful and it says with nothing if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love I am become as sounding brass or tinkling cymbals" [00:15:35]

"so here you are speaking with the tongues of men and angels and you don't have any love it's ball that's all it is to it that's all it means if I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge then the one that takes my breath away if I have faith so that I can move mountains they don't even teach you that in seminary I have nothing nothing and have not love I'm nothing if I give away all my goods if I give my body to be burned without love how many times that has happened how many martyrs had died with anger and hatred in their hearts for what all kinds of causes and have not love it profits me nothing" [00:16:56]

"we have to go through the kingdom inversion before we come to love we have to give up on all of that other stuff that's where the word of the kingdom has to come to us in power and to assure us of the reality of that kingdom remember as the basis for death to self because what are all of those things mentioned there speaking with the tongues of men and angels and so forth that's precisely the self being alive without love it's all a human show our service our speaking our gifts there's a human show unless B Amla remember that as we think about making this a choice now this is so deep that it has to be left for you to think about to give time to work it through your own soul till you come to the point where you can say yes I would really like to have that I really like to have that" [00:18:00]

"when we seek the kingdom of God we are seeking the kingdom of love we seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness what is his righteousness love isn't it in order for us to do that and care through with it we need to enter into our own souls and identify the things there that are not love and surrender them to God surrender them to God what in US we again this is intensely personal it's something that you can hardly talk about it in a large group because it's for each one of us to take away and to say now now what is it that hinders me and it may be at the level of our understanding of God or the gospel it may be at a doctrinal level see it may be there it may be just some little root of bitterness that as the writer of Hebrews says a root of bitterness some little thing down in there some little bitty disappointment and anger that I've lived with for so long that it is precious to me" [00:19:24]

"and I wouldn't know who I was if I gave it up and we all suffer from things don't I mean I don't know of a person alive that hasn't been wronged and injured hurt sometimes very badly so what we need to do now is to seek out the things in our souls that will prevent us from living moment by moment with those around us in love as we have seen it here tonight the verse in Proverbs 3 I think it is keep your heart with all diligence or from the heart by the issues of life I think it's 3:24 if not it's for 24 or something like that keep your heart that's where the life flows from and so as we finish this evening you see I want to leave you with that attitude of looking over the care of your own heart it is nothing that anyone can do but you if you choose to be a person that has learned love in the depths of your being you can be that but you must choose it and you must find the things that need to be changed and submit them to God" [00:21:15]

"give them give up on things that are hanging over you that you have tried for so long to control turn them loose to God many times it's learning just how to think I I was struck by a nurse on a Sunday morning program sometimes back and it was about how she had learned to care for people who were very unlovely and she said when I treat someone who is at the stage where they are and then she hesitated and said not attractive I think of them as someone's baby and they all were weren't they I see this nurse had entered into her heart I don't know when she's a Christian or not but this this promises well for her she had learned how to love people who were not lovely and she says I think of them as someone's baby who has all sorts of promise and could grow up to be President or anything that's hard to do that I'm sure when you're looking at someone who's an adult or any or perhaps elderly and but you see she had found the key to look at them as someone's baby and do you know that that is true of everyone and we are privileged to look at every human being as someone for whom God had an eternal plan and to approach them in that way" [00:22:58]

"now I have no idea in many cases whether they're going to fulfill that plan or not but I do know that I can see them as God's creature someone on whom he sins rain and Sun and who seeks to bless them and then in fulfilling his love in me I can be a part of that blessing and if they're my enemies that's still true if there are people who are cursing me that's still true now I want to just close then with this thought that I've already expressed because I wanted you to be thinking about it no one can prevent you from learning love in this way no one can prevent you from it God is in favor of it it is strictly speaking a matter between you and God and the deepest choice you make at this point is what kind of a person do I want to be do I want to be a person who is filled with love and because they're filled with love do the deeds of love or do I want something less than that now what God gets out of our life is the person we become that's what we get out of our lives and this is the highest vision of life in the kingdom of God it is a life of agape love that characterizes us to the deepest depths of our being" [00:24:47]

"Lord we ask you to take this teaching which is so deep and important and yet troubling and make it something that we can understand and put in practice this very evening tomorrow until the things that we've read about in the scripture this evening began to seem like things that are a part of our lives that are real for us that we can easily turn to and rely upon the vision of your kingdom as a kingdom of love of which we are part in which we are perfectly safe where it is good for us to be who we are where we are because of your love give us that vision and help us out of that to minister your kingdom to this world in Jesus name" [00:26:49]