02-05-12, Choose – Choosing God = choosing to learn how to love like Christ

Choose – Choosing God = choosing to learn how to love like Christ"If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15 (NASB) You really don’t know what you’re getting into when you get married, and the same can be said for having kids. You can tell yourself that you do, but you’re only kidding yourself, there are way too many variables and unknowns. What is for sure is that you have to learn how to love to be any good at either one. After having taken a go at both marriage and parenting I do know this much:  They are two of the best choices I have made, and I am still learning about love.You really don’t know what you’re getting into when make a decision to live with God, when you respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow Him. If a wife and children can blow your mind, think of what living with God will can do to you. There is no one who will challenge you more, stretch you more, and shape you more than God, than Christ. What is for sure is that you will have to learn how to love. You cannot really live with God without it.Jesus made no bones about it; all followers of His must learn how to love. Choosing Him meant choosing a life of love: “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” The teacher of religious law replied, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other. And I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. This is more important than to offer all of the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law.” Realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God” Mark 12:29-34 (NLT).“I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” John 13:34-35 (HCSB).“If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love” 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (MSG). “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love…. We love, because He first loved us” 1 John 4:7-8, 19 (NASB). “… I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect” Matthew 5:44-48 (NLT).When Joshua challenged the people in his day to choose God they responded with a, “Yup, we’re in. We choose God.” Joshua told them, “You are not able to serve the LORD, for he is a holy and jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins” Joshua 24:19 (NLT). Why did he tell them that? Because they needed to learn how to love and what to love, because he knew that we struggle with love and that God gives us a pass when it comes to love, because he knew that at the root of all human failure and sin you find a lack of love.I am challenged by God’s call for me to love, and I pray you are as well. If we are serious about following Christ we will make learning to love like Him our greatest pursuit.To God be all glory, love you, Pastor Hans