Deeper Love
The Deeper Love Podcast is available here.
I want to talk to you about God’s deeper love that is found in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Jesus died on the cross for our sin, for our wrongdoing against God. He paid the price of our wrongdoing with His own life by dying on the cross. And after three days, He was raised from the dead to newness of life, in resurrection glory. And He calls each of us to resurrection life through His forgiveness, through what He accomplished on the cross for us. By His death, He broke down the dividing wall of hostility, the hostility, the strife between God and man, between man and man, between man and woman, people. And He made a new man. In other words, in His resurrection, He accomplished something that is so incredible, that only God’s deeper love could do this. He wiped away the sin, death, hell and the grave legacy payment deserving from our life — by God’s unmerited favor which is known as His grace. So by His grace, His unmerited favor, He paid a price for us that we cannot pay. No matter how good we are, we cannot earn our own salvation. We cannot save ourselves. But Jesus saved us. And He sanctified us.
Sanctification is being made like Jesus, holy and righteous, pure of heart before God, a person who wants to worship Him and love Him, and serve Him all our days and joy and gladness and peace. The peace that Christ attained was bought with a price His own blood, His own life so that we may be a people of peace in Him. We must learn to walk in the truth of His teaching and His ways. And we find this in the Bible, which is His Holy Word. It is His written Word. And Jesus is the Living Word. All that Jesus is all that He is about encompasses the fulfillment of the law, and the Word of God. If we want to know what God wants, we look to Jesus. Jesus is the Author and the Finisher of our faith. He is the beginning and the end. Everything in Him is yes and amen. What that also means that everything outside of Him is no. We must learn how to live in Him, live our lives in Him, our daily lives, personally, professionally, relationally, spiritually, in every way so that in all things, we’re living the fullness of Christ, to the glory of God’s name and to the well being of humanity.
Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Are you free? Not free to do whatever you want. free to do whatever your personal, worldly fleshly desires want, but are you free in Christ? Do you know the freedom of a freed heart, a heart that is full of love? That effervesces love and gladness and joy wherever it goes that shines the light of life. A spirit that is lifted up by the glories and the promises and the goodness and the gladness of God. A life that is lived with purpose. and vigor and renewing strength that comes from gladness of heart.
Psalm 83 says, restore us, O God, make Your face shine on us that we may be saved. Have you seen God’s face shining on you? Have you felt it? Have you sensed it? Have you heard of it? God is the God of love and He longs to love us with His everlasting love. Have you let God love you?
Or are you running from his love? Are you trying to punish yourself? Are you trying to
insult yourself? Condemn yourself? Condemnation shall flee in Jesus name because Christ came to save the world. And the Holy Spirit convicts us of our unrighteousness before God. This inner conviction is a precious gift. It’s not someone else telling you, “You’re this You’re that!” It’s the Holy Spirit saying, “You know what? What you’re doing isn’t right with God. Make It right. Change your ways. Turn your heart. Turn your heart. That is what repentance is, is the turning of our hearts. Jesus calls us to love Him and live for Him as our Lord and our Savior and Our Deliverer and Our Rock and Our Strength. He also calls us to renounce sin, to turn away, to repent. Repentance is turning our hearts away from the thing that is not life giving in Christ. enmity, strife, hostility, discord, jealousy, anger, bitterness. There are all kinds of calamities that strive to sink into our hearts, and our spirits and our minds. But we must resist, refuse, say yes to God, yes to Christ, and His higher ways for what you’re thinking about, where your emotions are pursuing peace, love and joy in him, and where you’re rejecting the things that want to bring you down and out of the beautiful will of Christ. You know you are in His will when you feel the life giving flow of His gladness, and His love. And you can walk in it and be free in Him, free to love, free to love without fear. Free to follow His ways to say “yes” to the things of God and “no” to the things that He rejects. Revelation 7:9-10 says, “After this I looked and there before me, was a great multitude that no one could count. from every nation, tribe, people in language, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes are holding palm branches in their hands, and they cried out in a loud voice,. “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
At the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that He is Lord. People talk about making Jesus your Lord and Savior; We don’t make him our Lord and Savior. He is the Lord and Savior. We must bring our hearts to Him and give our hearts to Him and receive His love for us and lay down our lives before Him and ask him to make us in His likeness, to the glory of His name, to our well being And this is true whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you are, if you are born affluent, and you have all the wealth you need. If you were born struggling and you’re considered poor, whatever your creed, whatever your race, whatever your culture, whatever your nation, your national identity. If you are male, if you are female, Jesus Christ is The Lord. And one day, whether you say “Yes” to Him or not, we will all bow down and worship Him. So there’s a choice, either to say yes, in the fullness of gladness or to bow down and worship Him when he comes again. Even if you rejected Him, He is Lord. He is Lord and if people realize this, we will also realize His grace and His deeper love which is
so deep. It’s a depth of love that we cannot even fathom.
His love is unfailing. It’s unfailing and we must learn to be sensitive to the leading of His love. And give ourselves over and gladness and singleness of heart to Him. Not to the ways of the world, the promises or the schemes of so many things that distract us from him, but give ourselves to Him, because He is the Lord. Pray that He will make us like Him in His goodness, and that our life would be a living fire of love to draw others to Him.
Psalm 36 says, I have a message from God in my heart, concerning the sinfulness of the wicked. There is no fear of God before their eyes. And their own eyes, they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their sin. The words of their mouths are wicked and deceitful. They fail to act wisely or do good. Even on their beds, they plot evil, they commit themselves to a sinful course and do not reject what is wrong. So that’s the first part of what it says. And there are many people in this world who are not taking the goodness of God seriously. They aren’t striving to be good in Him. They’re striving after whatever they want their own pleasures of this world, going after vices going after material things going after their own power, and their own prestige, but all those things are vanity, and a chasing after the wind because the high Boerner but a breath, the low born are but a lie. When you weigh them on the scale, they weigh nothing. Because we are all destined to dust we shall return. And yet, though that is so, the Lord values us as his most precious possession in this life, He wants all of us to give our hearts to Him. But if you’re a person who is walking in sin, I urge you to consider what you’re doing. And pray that God will give you a sensitivity toward it, that you can turn from the ways that are not life giving and turn toward The Lord. If you’re a person who is striving already toward the righteousness of God, through Christ, Jesus our Lord, and there’s someone in your life, who is walking in sin and harming you because of it, walking in broken love. That’s what I call it, the kind of love that they say it’s love, but it’s really abuse. It’s really toxic. It hurts you, it doesn’t help you. It harms you, and they delight in it. These are the kinds of people that Psalm 36 is talking about. Their own eyes they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their sin. The words of their mouths are wicked and deceitful. They fail to act wisely or do good. Even on their beds, they plot evil, they commit themselves to a sinful course and do not reject what is wrong. I know these people, you know these people, we know people like this. So we must be careful not to be them. And we must be careful to learn how to protect ourselves in Christ from them. Because there are a lot of them in this world today, and they’re ever increasing. And this is something that no one’s talking about. People say, “Oh, just accept everyone the way they are. Just be accepting.” But God hates sin. And it hurts His heart to see His beloved, precious children being abused and harmed by a person who has chosen wickedness over righteousness. And we all have a choice.
So all things are not equal. There’s a life-giving way and there’s a life depleting way that a person can go. And the choice belongs to each of us. But if you’re a person who is harming someone because of your incalcitrant choices, your choices that in your heart, you have hardness of heart, you know it, you know what you’re doing, get on your knees before God and pray and ask Him to turn your heart toward Him. Think of Paul a persecutor of Christians, full of vehement hate for them until Jesus came face to face with Him and showed him the way to everlasting life and turned his heart and he was willing and responsive. If Jesus comes and nudges your heart, gets your attention to not deny him. His love for us is unfailing. Yet we must turn because He wants a relationship with us. It’s powerful and personal. He doesn’t just come to us and stand on the sidelines. He wants to be front and center in our lives. He wants to be on the throne of our heart. We cannot make Him our Lord and Savior because He is Lord. But we can make room in our own heart for Him to be Lord and Savior in our life.
So the next part of Psalm 36 says, verse five, Your love Lord reaches to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the skies. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, Your justice like the great deep. You Lord, preserve both people and animals. How priceless is your unfailing love, O God. People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house. You give them drink from your river of delights. For with You is the fountain of life. In Your light, we see light.
These verses are so important. They are the central focus of what deeper love is about. verses 5-10 of Psalm 36 God’s love reaches to the heavens, His love is all-reaching His faithfulness to the skies. He is so faithful. Your righteousness is like the highest mountains, it says. His righteousness is pronounced. It’s strong. It’s stable. It’s majestic. Do you ever think of doing right in Christ as majestic? It’s like the majestic mountains. That’s an amazing thougt to feast on in our hearts. His Word also says that His justice is like the great deep. When you think of an ocean when you think of an ocean It is so deep. It’s profound. We cannot even fathom it. And God is like that. There are many people who are victims of violence in today’s world, victims of abuse, oppression, the wickedness and schemes of others, toxic relationships, especially women and especially children. But God’s justice is like the great deep Let us pray for His justice.
You Lord, preserve both people and animals. God preserves us. God protects us. God holds our life in His hands. He wants us to be a people whose love protects. Yet when it comes to toxic and broken love, when it comes to abuse, that is not love. The person who is trying to oppress and scheme and slander is not protecting. He’s endangering. Verse 7 says “how priceless is your unfailing love, oh God, people take refuge in the shadow of your wings.” This is one of my favorite verses. And if there’s any vision, an image that I want you to carry with you of what is all this mean? Think of a heart with two wings, heart with wings on each side. How priceless is Your unfailing love, oh God, people take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. His love is on failing, it’s unfailing it will never fail. And His love is refuge for us. And we can take refuge in the shadow of His wings. And when I think of wings, I think of how the only way that a bird can fly and soar is by two wings and balance and we must learn how to have balance in our lives. We must learn how to be centered on God in Christ.
There’s a lot more I could say about that. But for now, suffice it to say that his love is unfailing and his love is priceless. There is nothing else that we could work for or be about that is of greater worth than His unfailing love. Nothing. No job, no material possessions, no status, nothing. His unfailing love is the greatest treasure for us. It is the most priceless prize of our hearts and our lives. Next verse says, “They feast on the abundance of your house. You give them drink from Your river of delights.” Are we feasting on the abundance of God’s house? Do you know the joy of sanctuary in Him? Is your home a place where His presence can abide? You give them drink from your river of delights. God is our delight and He will delight us and He will give us everlasting renewing and refreshing by His river of delights. Are you drinking from his river of delights? Personally spiritually, and relationship, professionally, even? For with you is the fountain of life, the fountain of life! When we are living in Him, we can feel a fountain of life, a refreshing in our spirit. “In your light we see light.” We must learn to look at our lives from His light and in His Light in the Light of the goodness of God and Christ Jesus our Lord. The next verse says, “May the foot of the proud not come against me nor the hand the wicked drive me away.” So David is praying and ask Please God, don’t let these wicked and oppressive people try to come against me as I seek You. And that’s a prayer that he has. Then the last verse is interesting, it says, see how the evil doers lie fallen, thrown down, not able to rise. So in essence, what this means is that if you’re seeking to do good, God will hear the goodness of your heart and protect you. But if you are seeking to come against good and to do evil and to harm people and to be abusive, and malicious, and
deceptive and conniving, eventually, downfall will happen for you. You will not be able to rise up and keep doing that.
You should turn to the goodness of God, the life giving love, the fullness of life in Him. And as we think about all of these promises, as we think about all these promises, in the ways of the Lord for ourselves, let us also live with abundant gladness and nourishment to apply them toward the Lord by letting our love and our light shine toward Him, and also toward others, to love them with fullness and gladness of heart, to the glory of His name, and the goodness of our days and Him that all people may come to a saving knowledge of the Lord. May we be messengers whose lives and words and waves are all congruently proclaiming the goodness of God through Jesus Christ, Our Precious Lord. Live Inspired, love deeply in Jesus name
