I Want to Know What Love is - Pastor Jeff Schreve

[Music] welcome to from his heart where pastor jeff shreeve begins a brand new inspiring series entitled the greatest of these is love are you confused about how to define love join us today for the lesson i want to know what love is he can heal every school [Music] first corinthians 13 is a well-known chapter in the bible we call it the love chapter because the theme of the chapter just 13 verses but the theme of the chapter is love and that's something that the corinthians were really missing in their church and it was causing all kinds of problems but you know when you think about the concept of love if somebody were to ask you today hey what is love how would you answer that question it's kind of a difficult question when you think about it somebody took the time to pull some kids some young kids ages four to seven to ask them hey kids what is love marianne who is only four years old said this love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day i i remember dr shields in our church he's in heaven now he told me he said jeff i think god created dogs to teach us about unconditional love and i think that might be true noel age seven said this what is love love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt and then he wears it every day ladies we will do that if you tell us something like that uh tommy age six said this love is like a little old man and a little old woman who are still friends even after they know each other so well that's very sweet chris age seven said this love is when mommy sees daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he's more handsome than brad pitt lauren age four i know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones i think her older sister told this is real love right here and nikki said this if you want to learn to love better you should start with a friend who you hate kind of crash course in loving foreigner the musical group sings the song i want to know what love is most of us don't really know what love is and you know it's interesting the bible doesn't really define love as much it as it describes love and depicts depicts love and in first corinthians chapter 13 paul is focusing in on love now remember the corinthians are having all sorts of problems they're having problems with jealousy and strife and pride and sexual immorality churches rife with problems and the main problem that they're having is they're not practicing love they're not loving one another jesus said a new commandment i give you that you love one another as i have loved you now the greeks had four main words for love they had the word eros eros is erotic love romantic love when you ask somebody about uh what is love they they kind of go to the love between a a man and a woman just kind of naturally go to romantic love well that's the word arrows eros is not used in the bible we have other words in the greek for love storge is another word for love storge is family love that's that's kind of tight you know i love my family and most for most of us that's just a natural thing then you have phileo phileo's brotherly love and then you have the word that's used over and over and over and over again in the bible and that's agape love that's the highest kind of love that's a love without conditions i i love you not because you do this i love you not if you do this i love you in spite of the things that you do that's how god loves us and that's how god commands us to love him and to love other people so paul is really rebuking the corinthians because they're not exhibiting love and he told them in the first three verses hey love is primary if you don't have love you guys are all excited about your spiritual gifts and he talks about spiritual gifts in chapter 12 and in chapter 14 and right sandwiched in the middle is this discussion on love and he's saying i don't care what kind of spiritual gift you have if you don't have love it amounts to nothing and he says these three three things he says without love i have nothing i am nothing i gain nothing love is primary and then he goes on in verse 4 and following to describe love this is what he says love is patient love is kind and is not jealous love does not brag and is not arrogant does not act unbecomingly it does not seek its own is not provoked does not take into account a wrong suffered does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth bears all things believes all things hopes all things endures all things and he sums up and says love never fails so if you take all those things together 15 from verses 4 5 and 6 15 different attributes and characteristics of love and interesting we read in the english these are adjectives in the greek they're verbs i have a friend of mine who's in heaven now john masano he's preached in our at our church in years past and he wrote a book called love is something you do because love is love when you put it into action so we want to look this morning at this agape love that paul talks about and look at those first three attributes so attribute number one agape love is long suffering love is patient the greek word for patient is the greek word compound greek word macro thumio macro means long i remember when i was at the university of texas i had to take macro economics and then the next semester i took micro economics macro economics is is the big picture view of economics and micro is the smaller view so macro means big means long and thumio means anger it means when you're patient it takes a long time for you to get angry it's a love that is slow to anger and it's a love that patiently endures hardships and hard people hard to love people hardships and hard heads we deal with folks like that that that are hard people they're just hard to love and so love is patient with those people now that is god's love and and everything that paul says about love as he describes love remember this it's a picture of god because god is love god is agape and jesus christ is god in the flesh and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god so this is a a picture and a depiction of the lord jesus christ and right off the bat love is patient because the lord is patient now when debbie and i went to branson we saw the presentation of noah at the sights and sounds theater and if you ever get an opportunity to see that i know some of you have seen it it is excellent but in in the presentation of noah it picks up in genesis chapter 6 how uh the world is wicked beyond belief and and the bible says that god has grieved in his heart because every intent of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually and god said i'm going to have to destroy man from the face of the earth and the scripture says that even though it was so bad god says my spirit shall not strive with man forever genesis 6 3 yet his days shall be 120 years isn't that amazing i mean if you're at the end of your rope with somebody i mean you're god and you see that every intent of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil continually and you say i'm not going to i'm not going to mess with you anymore i'm not going to plead with you anymore but i'm going to give you some time how about 120 seconds and i'll give you 120 seconds to get right otherwise i'm bringing destruction god is slow to anger and he gave them 120 years even though they didn't repent just noah and his family were the only ones that went on the ark and the bible clearly says that in the book of first peter that the patience of god was waiting in the days of noah but nobody responded god is long suffering when the lord revealed himself to moses moses said lord exodus 33 show me your glory and the lord said well i'll show you the backside of my glory and i'll make all my goodness pass before you and he did that with moses and he hid him in the cleft of the rock and he covered him with his hand and then he passed by and he declared his name the lord the lord god compassionate and gracious slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth the lord is not slow about his promises as some encounters but as patient the bible says toward you not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance sometimes we say how come it's been so long since jesus was on the earth he said he'd come again but it's been 2 000 years why is god so slow the lord is not slow about his promise as some men count slowness he's patient toward you because he doesn't want you to perish i got saved in 1980 if jesus had come back in 1979 i would have missed it i'd have missed out on it i'd have to go through the great tribulation who knows if i would have gotten saved then but he didn't he was patient toward me and so regard the patience of our lord to be salvation god is a patient god robert ingersoll was the well-known atheist and uh he just hated the idea of god he was speaking one time to a crowd and he said i i call god out if god exists then i call him out right now god if you exist then strike me dead right now i will give you five minutes and he said his watch and he said let's just wait and see if god shows up if there is a god and he waited five minutes and nothing happened and he laughed and he said see there is no god well a christian heard of this stunt that he pulled and he said how foolish that robert ingersoll could possibly think that he could exhaust the patience of god in five minutes god is long suffering god is patient and when you and i are patient we're like god so that agape love is patient it's a love that is slow to anger that patiently endures it's a love that cuts people lots of slack do you do that in your relationships with people do you do that in their relationships with your own family do you cut them lots of slack so often we don't so often we're so impatient with people we're impatient with people at work we're impatient with people in the neighborhood we're impatient with people on the road we're impatient with people at home a little boy named timmy was just the first second grader just a little guy and his mother was called to his school to have a conference with timmy's teacher because timmy was struggling in some things and so the teacher wanted to talk to timmy's mother about things and so she went to the school and and the teacher began to tell well timmy's you know he's having a little bit of trouble here and he's having a little bit of trouble there and and uh i have to get on to him a little bit and and the teacher said to the mother she said but you know what he said something to me today that i didn't understand maybe you understand what it means he kept saying that love is slow she said i i don't know what that means do you know what that means and the mother burst out in tears and the mother said i know what that means she said it's so busy in the morning at our household and and timmy always seems to be dragging and i always say timmy hurry up timmy hurry up timmy get out of bed timmy hurry up eat your breakfast timmy hurry up timmy brush your teeth hurry up timmy uh get dressed hurry up hurry up put on your jacket put on your shoes tie your shoes hurry up hurry hurry and she said this morning i just got so angry with him that i just yelled at him and said timmy why are you so slow she said that's why he's saying that love is slow love is patient love is long suffering with people and see that word macro the meo it means that you can retaliate but you don't retaliate because that's a love that waits patiently for the lord we wait on the lord when we practice patience the scripture says be patient until the coming of the lord never pay back evil for evil to anyone but respect what is right in the sight of all men if possible so far as it depends on you be at peace with all men never take your own revenge beloved but leave room for the wrath of god for it is written vengeance is mine i will repay says the lord so when we're patient we're patient until the coming of the lord we don't retaliate even though we could because love is patient it is long-suffering second attribute agape love not only is it patient and long-suffering it is kind and gracious kind and gracious love is patient verse 4 love is kind that word for kind is also a word that jesus used when he said in matthew chapter 11 come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and i will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for i am gentle and humble in heart and you shall find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy it is kind it is gracious and my burden is light kindness is so critical it is so important when my girls were little i said we're we're going to have a scripture that is going to be the scripture for our home ephesians 4 32 and be kind to one another tenderhearted forgiving one another just as god in christ also has forgiven you it's important for kids to be kind to one another now i had three girls and i think girls are great girls rock but girls are when they're good they're great when they're bad they're horrible can i get an amen somebody i mean there's a reason why there's a television show called mean girls they don't have mean boys i don't think it's just mean girls boys they just go out and fight but girls pick each other to death uh they can be just so catty and uh you you might remember the poem there was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead when she was good she was very very good and when she was bad she was horrid that's the way girls are when they're good they're great when they're bad they're terrible and so we had with the girls hey ephesians 4 32 family verse be kind to one another see kindness treats others with respect first corinthians 13 5 says that love does not act unbecomingly love is not rude love treats others with respect now remember the lord says if there's not love there whatever you're doing you you have nothing you are nothing you gain nothing nothing on eternity's clock and so we're supposed to be respectful of other people and we don't treat them like they're some kind of second class person now interesting so patience is i take from you i could retaliate but i choose not to retaliate because love is long suffering kindness is what you give in return see uh it's kind of like the the two sides of the same coin so on one side love says i will take from you and i'll be long suffering with you and i'll be patient with you and on the other side instead of retaliating against you i'm going to give you kindness that which you do not deserve see kindness gives a blessing and not an insult the bible says in first peter chapter 3 to sum up let all be harmonious sympathetic brotherly kind-hearted and humble in spirit not returning evil for evil or insult for insult but giving a blessing instead for you are called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing don't don't return insult for insult have you noticed how we just naturally if somebody gets you that you just want to get them back i remember we used to watch in our family the movie hook with robin williams and uh that you know they're at the they're at the dinner table if you saw that movie you know it's the peter pan thing that it's done a little differently anyway they're at the table and rufio is is giving uh robin williams what for and he's coming up with all these uh cut downs and insults and they're like come on hit him back hit him back he's throwing it at you you throw it at him well that's kind of the world's way if somebody insults you you you go one up on them it's kind of like playing catch with your friend i was i was the youngest of three brothers and uh so if i played catch with larry or greg you know they could throw the ball harder than i could and so we're just throwing you know playing catch you throw it to me i throw it to you you throw it to me i throw it to you you know you got your glove on and all of a sudden if he comes hard well then it's like okay my manhood is is on the line here i got to come harder and he comes harder i got to come harder and we do that so often in relationships so often in marriage and in the the closest person to us she says something we don't like so we come back with something to get her and then she comes back to get us and it's insult for insult the bible says don't do that give a blessing in stead a gentle answer proverbs 15 1 turns away turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger i was speaking debbie and i were speaking at a family life conference some years ago and one of the guys that we were speaking with told a story about uh taking his wife and his young son i think he was about four or five years old to disneyland they lived in in the anaheim california area and so they went to disneyland and they were building the disneyland up to their little boy saying oh this is going to be great you're going to love this all the different things at disneyland and then and then at the end there's a big fireworks show and so that's going to be like the cherry on the sunday and so the little kid was so excited so they get there and you know they had to park uh you know in a different time zone and you know how it is at those places and so walking and walking and walking and they had a stroller for him because they knew hey this is going to be a lot of walking he can't do all that so they had a stroller for him well so they spent the day at disneyland they did all the fun stuff and then it's coming down to the evening and the fireworks and their little boy falls asleep and i mean he's out and so my friend ty tells his wife said listen i've i've had all the fun i want to have you know how it is for especially for dads uh with going to a place like that so they're like let's just go he's asleep and i don't need to see the fireworks and so let's go so they packed everything up and they go back to the car and when they get all the way back to the car and he pulls his son out to put him in the car seat the little boy wakes up and the little boy wants to know about the fireworks and his dad said well that ship sailed son uh you know because you fell asleep and so we didn't get to see the fireworks and and you know it's just too late too far and the little boy starts to scream and he starts to carry on and he starts to cry and it gets loud and the father is getting i mean the long suffering is going out the window and uh then his wife says to him uh tai we could just go back and we could put him in the stroller and we could get back in there they'd probably let us in we wouldn't have to pay again and let's just do it and then he just hits his breaking point and he snaps at her and he says some ugly things to her he doesn't cuss at her anything like that but he's just rude to her and he's just very curt and demeaning he was insulting and you know how that works where somebody does that to you and your natural inclination has come back to him and so he was insulting to her and she looked at him and she looked deeply into his eyes and she said tai i love you thank you for taking us here i know this has been hard but thank you for doing that and he said his heart just melted when he saw his wife just being so sweet to him it was undeserved he was being a jerk and he just oh he said oh let's go let's get him back in the stroller let's go you know we we need to do this and but it made all the difference in the world a gentle answer turns away wrath but a harsh word stirs up anger love is kind and gracious even when people don't deserve it listen you know i have a heart for wait staff when i go out to eat i always like to engage the waiter or waitress i like to find out a little bit about them always like to give them a good tip always like to bless them sometimes you have a really good waiter or waitress sometimes you have one that's not so great but they still need to be treated with kindness and you know what's so bad is that so many waiters and waitresses don't like to work on sundays because they know the christians are coming for lunch and the christians can be so rude and so demeaning and so demanding hey love is kind and love is gracious and we need to be that way and then thirdly kindness does not go off on people agape love is kind and gracious and kindness doesn't go off on people now here's what i want you to think of going off on people because we've all done it before where you hit you hit the the breaking point like my friend ty did he went off on his wife and his son we've all done that before but here's where you really need to watch it so that you don't go off two words you need to write it down social media people go off on other people on social media have you noticed that i mean things just ramp up real fast on social media i mean you put a picture of your puppy on there and say i like puppies and that somebody comes back and says you racist i mean it's just like how's that a racist i like puppies you know and so you come back with something on them oh yeah your mother wears army boots you know and you get the mothers involved and it just seems to escalate so quickly be kind to one another now this is the way i look at social media i do two main social media platforms facebook and twitter and instagram i have an instagram account but i hadn't figured out how to use that one yet but uh i still remember chris schroeder's daughter brooklyn she's right down front there we were talking one day because she does instagram and we were comparing instagrams and she goes well you have more friends than i do you have more followers on instagram than i do i said well i never go on it maybe that's how you get them you know you don't never show up but listen facebook especially that's like inviting people into your living room your page on facebook and that's true for that's the way i look at it i think other people look at it like that you're supposed to me my quote-unquote friend i have 5 000 friends on facebook i probably don't know 4 500 of them you know i mean it's just like when i first got on there it's like okay you want to be my friend yes yes yes yes don't know who you are people quit me all the time so if you want to be my friend on facebook just get in line because surely enough it would be five or six quit next week because i put post things on there not directed at anyone in particular but at ideologies at the issue of abortion religious liberty uh biblical morality those kinds of things and people get mad but can you imagine going into somebody's house and and sitting down in their living room and just start blasting them about their stand on this and that and the other we wouldn't do that face to face but boy we think we can do it online and i had one guy he was blasting me about something it's like i haven't heard from you in 15 years and you show up on my facebook page blasting me about this could you at least say hello how are you doing and then blast me at least be nice about it you know and it's just we got to be careful with that kind of stuff because why love is kind and by this all men will know that we are his disciples if we have love for one another so agape love is long suffering agape love is kind and gracious and attribute number three agape love is not jealous of other people love is patient love is kind and is not jealous now in the corinthian church lots of jealousy and lots of jealousy as it related to spiritual gifts because they they put so much emphasis on the more showy gifts especially speaking in tongues and they're like oh man i wish i had that gift and and people were getting up and speaking and people were no doubt and the devil was involved in that no doubt corrupting that gift because some people were cursing jesus supposedly in this tongue and people had i have this gift you just have this lower gift and they were doing all that kind of stuff and there was jealousy and strife in the church and paul says hey love is patient love is kind love is not jealous now the bible tells us about jealousy in james chapter 3. it says this who among you is wise and understanding let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom but if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth this wisdom is not that which comes down from above but is earthly natural demonic for where jealousy and selfish ambition exist there is disorder and every evil thing man jealousy is a bad player because when that exists there's disorder in every evil thing there was jealousy in the church paul says to them in 1st corinthians 3 he says hey i wanted to speak to you as mature men in christ but i couldn't because you're jealous of one another and there's selfish ambition running around in the church and so i had to talk to you like baby christians and i couldn't give you solid food i had to give you milk because you weren't able to take it you were just mere men you're just acting like you're not even saved so when you think about this thing called jealousy how does that come about well jealousy is rooted in two things comparison and covetousness comparison and covetousness so you when you if you live all by yourself in an island somewhere in a different planet and it's just you there'd be no one you wouldn't be jealous because it's just you so who you're going to be jealous of but we don't we we live with other people and so jealousy comes when you start comparing now the bible tells us that we should count our blessings we have a song count your blessings name them one by one count your many blessings see what god has done and what we tend to do is we'll look at our blessings but we don't count them as much as we like to compare them how many blessings do i have versus how many blessings does this guy have this girl have when we compare how am i doing compared to this person now if you're a naturally competitive person i'm naturally competitive that can make it hard because you you kind of line up and if you're in a competitive field you kind of do that but hey in the christian life you can't start comparing what god has done in your life versus what god has done in somebody else's life because if you do that when you compare two things happen one one of two things will happen both of them are bad if you compare and you are doing better than your neighbor you get proud look at me my list of blessings is two pages yours is just a half a page i'm doing really well you know my son's a doctor my daughter's on the supreme court my other son is is a bank president well my kid works at whataburger you know i mean it's just kind of like well it's not so good there uh nothing wrong with whataburger but you know you compare and so it'll make you proud or if you end up on the short side of the stick it makes you depressed you're like oh i mean why does she get everything why is she so pretty and i'm not as pretty why is he so talented and i'm not as talented why why does he get the the big promotion and i didn't get the big promotion and we compare and then we start to covet now and commandment number 10 on the two tablets of stone you shall not covet your neighbor's house or your neighbor's spouse or anything that belongs to your neighbor you be thankful and grateful for what god has given you and you don't look at your neighbor and you don't compare your neighbor you know when jesus was talking to peter in john chapter 21 and he told him uh this is what's going to happen to you peter there's coming a day where they're going to lead you to a place where you don't want to go and bad things are going to happen he was speaking to him about his death and peter was like okay lord and then he points to john he said well lord what about this guy and jesus said what is that to you what does my plan for john have to do with you peter you follow me don't get your eyes on john don't compare your life with john's your ministry with john you follow me so jealousy comes you compare and then you covet you want what the other person has and then it goes deeper jealousy is often characterized by resentment see james 3 talks about bitter jealousy bitter jealousy that's a jealousy that's rooted in resentment it's not so much that i hate that you have this and i don't have this it's not only do i want what you have but i don't want you to have it see it's bitter jealousy we have that when people commit terrible crimes against another if you remember nancy kerrigan and tonya harding they were they were bitter rivals and most of the bitterness from all i can tell came from tonya harding and she looked at nancy kerrigan like you you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth and you're better than i am at skating and so uh we're gonna fix your wagon i'm gonna get somebody to hit you with a lead pipe in your knee and then you're not gonna be able to skate anymore and then i can take the limelight bitter jealousy causes all kinds of problems you know some of the worst for jealousy some of the worst for jealousy preachers it's just true preachers get together at conferences and we're comparing how's your church doing and we're constantly thinking about our church we hang around this guy it's like how many are your church oh we got 300 oh why don't you ask me how many are at my church because i have more than 300. and then you get by somebody how many at your church oh i have 3 000. oh well why don't you go over there you know because you have more than i do and and so constantly doing that kind of stuff you know there were two very famous preachers in the early 1900s of first half of the 1900s in texas who were so jealous and such bitter enemies one was george w truitt he was the pastor at first baptist dallas for 40 some odd years and the other was j frank norris he was the pastor at first baptist fort worth and he was there for 40 some odd years many of us know in baptist circles we know george w truitt a lot better than we know the name jay frank norris well during the 20s and 30s people knew jay frank norris much better and here's the reason why he was indicted four times by a county grand jury once for perjury twice for arson and then once for first degree murder somebody came to his office and as the story goes he confronted jay frank norris and it got physical and jay frank norris pulled a gun out of his desk and shot and killed him that's pretty severe i've had some people come confront me at my office but i never thought hey here's an idea i i've never done that now he was acquitted and they said it was self-defense but still that's that's really something so he was in the news a lot jay frank norris well he couldn't stand george w truth so much so that he would send him telegrams in the early hours on sunday morning so it would interrupt his sleep so he would wake up and then couldn't go back to sleep he would send telegrams to the church on sunday morning and time it in such a way it was before he got up to preach and he would get this telegram somehow in true its hands that says i can't believe that you would occupy a pulpit because of the kind of person you are you are an infidel he just went off on him but there was such bitterness there there was such jealousy there they were jealous of each other's ministries and i don't know how much of that was coming from truett but a lot of it was coming from jay frank norris preachers can be the worst when it comes to jealousy hey love is not jealous and maybe you're here and you struggle with jealousy maybe you've been jealous of a sister or a brother or your neighbor or somebody on the ball team because they're better than you are hey you're going to always meet people that are better than you are better in business better in sports better this better that better looking they just there's just people around like that you just got to be comfortable in your own skin this is how god made me i'm going to be the best me i can be i'm not in competition with anybody else i'm in competition with myself to be the best me i can be and when you let bitter jealousy get in your heart it brings every evil thing i ran across a story that's a fable about two eagles and one eagle was a better flyer than the other eagle and the one that was the lesser flyer he didn't like that that his counterpart could go higher and faster than he could and so he found a sportsman one day and he said to the sportsman he said you see that eagle up in the sky he said why don't you take your bow and arrow and shoot him down and the sportsman said well i i could but now i need a feather for my arrow and so the bitter eagle said well here take one of mine and he pulled out a feather for him to put on his arrow and he went and shot but he missed the soaring eagle so he said i need another feather and so the eagle says sure take another one and he does it and he shoots and he misses and he says take another one take another one take another one he kept shooting and kept missing and finally the eagle said okay that's all the feathers i can give you but he had given so many feathers he could no longer fly and the sportsman turned and killed him see jealousy doesn't hurt the person who is soaring it hurts you it hurts you and love is not jealous now i know what some of you are thinking you're saying wait a minute time out you say that first corinthians 13 is a picture of jesus yes and that love is not jealous yes but jeff i think i've read somewhere in the bible that says that god is jealous yes you did exodus 34 verse 14 for you shall not worship any other god for the lord whose name is jealous is a jealous god god is a jealous god you say well it says the love is not jealous and god is a jealous god how do you reconcile those things well you reconcile them this way second corinthians 11 verse 2 paul told the corinthians for i am jealous for you with a godly jealousy for i betrothed you to one husband that to christ i might present you as a pure virgin see here's the thing when we are jealous we are jealous of another person god is never jealous of you he's jealous for you because god knows that the thing you need is him and so he's jealous for you to follow after him to come to him to walk with him he jealously desires the spirit whom he has given to us to to dwell in us and to dominate us god has that desire for you and for me god is a jealous god he's jealous for you not jealous of you now i want to close with this story i ran across this story years ago it's a story written by a lady named mary ann byrd marianne byrd was born with many physical deformities and difficulties she was deaf in one ear she had some deformities in her face she her speech was garbled she got made fun of mercilessly as a kid growing up as you can imagine she was growing up in the 40s and 50s and people were just brutal to her and marianne byrd just said you know i think the only person who's ever going to love me is just family because everybody else out there in the world they don't seem to love me they just make fun of me they just constantly tease me because i'm different well one year in her grammar school years she was put in mrs leonard's class and mrs leonard was different than all the other teachers because she was just so happy and so joyful and so warm and had a great smile and seemed to love people well one day they had a hearing test in their school that's what they would do back then uh you didn't have special you know equipment for that they would just have hearing tests in the class and the teacher would call the student up and the teacher would say now you hold cover up one ear and i'm gonna whisper in this ear and then you tell me what i whispered and then we're going to cover up the other ear and i'll whisper and you tell me what i whispered and the teacher would normally whisper something like the sky is blue the grass is green what color are your shoes just stuff like that just kind of generic stuff but when marianne bird was called up to the teacher she said she always cheated because she was deaf in one ear so she would pretend to hold her hand over her ear but she would cup it so she could hear with her good ear when the teacher was whispering in the bad air because she didn't want to be made more fun of by the students and she said when i came up to the front she said mrs leonard did something that changed my life she didn't whisper in my ear the sky is blue or the grass is green she whispered these seven words i wish you were not little girl i wish you were my little girl mary ann byrd said that was like the first time somebody had just deposited love like that outside of her family into her heart i've never forgotten that story because that's exactly what god does he's jealous for you he wishes that you would be his son his daughter his child he gave his only begotten son so that you would not perish but that you could have eternal life the father did not send the son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him he came to seek and to save that which was lost and he says to everyone i wish you belonged to me i wish you were mine listen you might be here today and you've never made a decision to give your heart and life to christ i want you to hear from the lord the whisper test i wish you were mine i wish you would come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden i will give you rest i will forgive your sin i will change your life come to me and for the believers those who have come to him the lord still says hey i want you to walk with me i want you to walk in my love the problem that we have in church for many of us is we know the truth we know the gospel we've responded to the gospel but now we're just kind of coasting we're not really seeking the lord and the lord said i wish you would seek me with all your heart i wish you would walk with me i jealously desire my spirit to dwell within you and to dominate you so that i could fill you with love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control a person would have to be a fool to say to god no god i think i'll just go it on my own my friend the greatest of these is love and god so loved the world he so loved you that he gave his only begotten son if you have never put your faith and trust in jesus i want to encourage you to do that today just pray this prayer with me just say lord jesus i need you i know that i'm a sinner and i'm lost and i can't save myself jesus i believe that you are god in the flesh i believe you died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead lord right now i surrender my all to you come into my heart forgive me of all my sins be my lord and savior and i promise to follow you all the days of my life my friend if you'll pray that kind of prayer and mean it the lord will come in and your life will never be the same i'd love to hear from you to know that you're watching to know that god is using this broadcast to make a difference in your life to know that you just prayed that prayer to receive christ as savior and lord please call me write me let me know what's going on and how we can pray for you you really are important to god and you're important to us and we're here for you thank you for watching from his heart today the viewer supported broadcast ministry of dr jeff shreeve who believes that no matter how badly you may have messed up in life god still loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life find out more go to promiseheart.org [Music]

Channel: From His Heart Ministries

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Id: -n0oaMzLifo

Length: 49min 15sec (2955 seconds)

Published: Sun May 02 2021