Loving God Pt 1: With All Your Heart - Pastor Ron Tucker

jesus said there is no greater command than to love God with our all all our heart all our mine all our strength because God is love even though our all is small it moves his heart yeah that's the essence of the whole deal we're gonna be talking about in these next few days or next few weeks I should say I just want to pray before we get started today I just feel like you know what we're talking about is so significant so important for the Holy Spirit to reveal this to us for the eyes of our heart the ears of our understanding he's what we were talking about all weekend last weekend that God would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of Jesus because we can't see these things that we're talking about any other way the only way we can grasp spiritual truth is in the light of Holy Spirit illumination David saw it he said for it's in your light that we see light and so we're just gonna we're just gonna talk to the Holy Spirit for a moment God would you do what you love to do would you shine light on your word tonight today would you just give us illumination would you give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation and the knowledge of your son Jesus open our hearts open my mouth give me words to say I ways to make this clear just highlight these words to us in Jesus name Amen amen well this Thursday a bunch of us guys will be stopping on our way home from work to pick up cards and flowers and heart-shaped boxes of chocolate and I for one am very happy that smokes in the HAR mark are guiding us on what to buy because expressing our love can be complicated and a very smart man by the name of Gary Chapman wrote a book on the five love languages that sold 11 million copies and 25 years later is still on the New York Times bestseller list comes the loving God all of us are kind of clueless as well I mean so I thought we'd spend a few weeks looking at what the Bible says about what it really means to love God on his terms because he clearly lets us know he desires us he simple everyday expressions of our love move his daddy heart that's what's so amazing Jesus was plain about this an expert in the law asked him one day said what's the most important commandment and just for the record the Jews had managed to spend 613 laws out of God's Big Ten so you know that's a whopping amount of do's and don'ts to stay on good God's good side so this lawyer is really asking you know what's the bottom line here I mean is there like one of these that stands out because this is a lot of stuff to do and not do and in first in Matthew 22:37 Jesus is very quick to answer which is not typical because he usually answered in question questions with questions but this time he's right on it I mean he's direct to the point love the Lord your God read with me love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and when Mark records the same passage in chapter 12 verse 30 he adds the word strength so love the Lord with all your heart your soul your mind and your strength Jesus says this is the first and greatest commandment this is priority number one in God's kingdom if you want to know what God's after here it is I mean this this is the first and main thing the Holy Spirit is emphasizing right now in the church because this has the greatest impact on our hearts on our lives on everything so many people are searching for meaning and success right now you check out any self-help section in a bookstore and they're loaded with books on how to leverage your strengths and achieve your potential and find true meaning and Jesus cuts right to the chase and puts it in one sentence this is the secret to greatness in our creators eyes and it has nothing to do with skillset or talent or education or book a bank balance or you know the number of people who like us on Facebook or follow us on Instagram from God's perspective the whole secret to living great is loving him with our whole being and Jesus further defines that as with all your heart soul mind and strength but here's the thing that nobody taught me in Sunday school even if my love is weak and fragile if I'm giving it all to him that's enough to move his heart I didn't get that growing up I didn't and that little tweak is huge I mean think about how utterly amazing this is that the primary thing on the mind of the being who created and uphold a million galaxies right now is me loving him but the amazing thing is that's why all of this stuff exists it's why he created it all and then there's the fact that he's already got some of the most fascinating people in history to talk to I mean heavens full of people he's got myriads of angels worshiping him 24/7 he's got Jesus in the Holy Spirit and he wants to hang out with me spiritually dull insensitive broken self-absorbed my own again off again love me don't go down your head you got your own set of problems I mean we all are in this we're messed up people we're broken and our spiritual poverty goes beyond anything we know and yet he sends his beloved son to make us one with him forever to let us know how much he desires us he wants us he he wants us close to him the Bible is clear about the fact that God is totally self-sufficient he's got no needs everything belongs to him he created it all for his pleasure but Jesus lets us know there's one thing he's still searching for and it's something he really really desires he tells us exactly what that is in John 4:23 and what's interesting is that in Jesus day a political incorrectness the person that he's telling this to is the wrong race and the wrong gender Jews did not talk to Samaritans I mean it was a racial thing and Jewish men didn't talk to women they weren't related to and yet he's sharing intimate information about God with this woman he finds her too well and he asked her for water and in the ends up telling her about the living water that he's come to bring and when she you know he gets a little too too hot for her because he starts probing into her life and she asked a religious question about which city people should worship God in and he says this is this is the inside he says the true genuine worshippers of God will worship the father in spirit and in truth in reality for the father is seeking just such people as these as his worshippers so Jesus is saying God is actively seeking our worship I mean if we thought that if we believed that think about how different our prayer times would be and he's saying this to a woman who's in the wrong religion she's been married five times and she's living living with a man she's not married to and yet it doesn't seem to matter to Jesus he he just gives her one of the most important insights in all of Scripture into the Father's heart that he is looking for true worshipers it's the one thing God wants but he won't take by his own power the voluntary love of a human heart and here's why because love is either a choice or it's not real I mean he didn't want robots or he too created us to be robots God wants people who choose to love him in second chronicles chapter 16 verse 9 we get the picture of this very thing it says the eyes of the law run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to him that says God God is caring whole earth looking for people who are pursuing him and seeking him to obey Him just because they want to how crazy is that that my weak love gets that kind of attention how how could I matter that much to the creator of it all but we saw it in the life of David I mean God finds a little shepherd kid who's done nothing but write him love songs out in the field and he makes him King and calls him a man after his own heart Wow I mean what would happen if our kids grow up believing that they could move the heart of God like that we definitely know that you know God loves Jesus but look at this just before Jesus goes to the cross he prays this prayer he says the love with which you Heavenly Father have loved me I'm asking that it would be in them that you would put it in them I mean God is crazy about Jesus well Jesus said Father put that same kind of love in there you've heard me say it takes God to love God well there it is that means the ability to receive his love and love him back is a gift it's one of the greatest things the Holy Spirit does for us from the moment we're born again he's in our recreated human spirit giving us the desire and the capacity to love God that is an expression of his desire for us he puts this inner yearning in us that says I want to love you God in Romans 5:5 the Apostle Paul tells us one of the main ways we know we've been born again is that the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us and today I want to help us tap into that I want to help us learn how to express our love in God's love language this is the one gift he can't give himself and the one thing wants more than anything else so we're gonna look at what it means to love God with our whole heart our mind our soul and our strength you'll be happy to know we're just gonna do one of them all right I'm gonna break this down because I want to go over these one at a time these are the four basic spheres of who we are and this will help us figure out how to love God with all we've got because that seems nebulous to us doesn't it when we read that I just like okay I want to do that but how do you do it so this week we're only going to look at how to love God with all our heart here's what that looks like to love God with all our heart engages our emotions it involves our affections and long is all the inner yearnings and feelings and desires that move us it's being fully devoted to the relationship and eager to give him our all we're not passive we're not looking for shortcuts we're we're not trying to find the minimum we can do and still get into heaven we're all in and God uses David to show us how he feels about that here in Psalm 91 verse 14 and this is the psalm I memorized as young kid still the one I quote the most we got it in the hall written in calligraphy and I'll just stand in front of that thing and read it almost all the time just simply because I want I want it to impact my heart I want the reality of what David saw here and there's it's a huge song but I'm just gonna read you the end of the psalm where God speaks directly to David and this is this is the Lord speaking in he says because he has set his love upon me therefore I will deliver him I will set him on high because he has known my name he shall call upon me and I will answer him I will be with him in trouble I will deliver him in honor him with long life will i satisfy it and show him my salvation now what I want you to notice is this is how God responds just because David has set his heart to love in God this is the tweak you know in your in your mind God didn't say because David has loved me faithfully and not you know messed up he didn't say that he said I'm doing all of this I'm gonna do all these things for David because he has set his love on me and that's really good news because David had spectacular failures but he never stopped expressing his weak love and his worship to God and that act clearly moved God I mean for God to make all these spectacular promises you know I'm gonna I'm gonna honor you and protect you and bless you a long life and satisfy you show you my salvation I mean all of that is predicated on because he has set his love on me you have the same power to move the heart of God by simply setting your love on every one of us has the ability to set our affections we you Center our love on money on things on sports on gadgets on gardening clothes cars food having a good time the moment we lock into whatever that thing is our emotions will start to grow for have you noticed that will love whatever we focus on whatever we go after here's how Jesus said that in Luke 12 34 he says wherever your treasure is what happens there that is ours your art will also be our hearts were designed to go wherever we invest them so within the human makeup under Jesus creative genius we were fashioned with the power to set our hearts and our emotions will eventually follow wherever we set them or investment I know it's a new idea for some of you you know but it is absolutely true you ask yourself that question you look at what you have invested in it you got into it I mean your heart got into it your emotions follow where you set your heart all those crazy you know songs about falling in and out of love I mean that's ridiculous love is a fire the day you stop stoking it it'll die out so if your marriage has gone dead here's the good news you can build a new fire do you hear me I mean you can literally build a fire you can invest your heart back into the relationship now I know that sounds crazy to you right now but you can get that fire going again it's not rocket science we've got classes they help you do it we had couples who can share their testimonies of how it happened now I'm not saying we can will our motions to change within the hour or overnight but over time it will change and the same is true in our relationship with God we can set our hearts on loving God that's why we tithe our money that's why we spend time worshiping together and I you know that's why I challenge you to have a devotional time where you were routinely talking to God and meditating on his word so I encourage you to get here for at least one prayer meeting a month where you're actually learning the language of Prayer these meetings are a refuge from technology you can get your heart quiet enough to hear God speaking to you because he is speaking to you you're just not hearing it you're too noisy if you'll do what I just described there for a few months or years you're gonna look back and realize well my heart is in a totally different place I am way more passionate about Jesus and about about God our emotions follow the course wherever we set him I'm watching sailing videos right now kind of hooked on this and the principle in sailing is if you want to end up in Tahiti instead of the coast of Siberia you have to keep checking your coordinates because your boat won't stay on course by itself I mean it tends to Devere and that setting and resetting of your heart may seem weak it may seem tedious it may seem ridiculous but it is so worth the effort that's the path to the secret place of delight and peace that David found that he discovered you just I know this sounds ridiculous but you just keep saying I will love you god I'm gonna do everything I can to get my emotions and my feelings going down this path I'm gonna be in worship eating's even even when I don't feel like it I'm gonna trust you I'm gonna engage I'm gonna believe that you were able to do what I can't do to change me to get me there it's really a farming principle you know it's that principle again to cultivate my love for God I got to plant the seed and get rid of the weeds the things that are choking it and I'm talking about weeds of fear and envy and bitterness and resentment the things that pollute my heart watching porn gossiping lying cheating on a test or my income tax steal and pride anger all those things my confidence before God that's the big deal they suffocate my love and some 24/3 David asked the questions who may ascend the hill of the Lord or who may stand in his holy place and here's his answer he who has clean hands and a pure heart that's been a constant for me I mean I don't pray when my hands and heart are dirty I have to repent after announcer diet you know I want to do what Adam and Eve did I want to hide from God but when I repent when I when I renounced that thing and I ask God to cleanse me I mean everything changes so resisting sin is a huge part of setting your heart to love God I love what David said in Psalm 18 he said I will love you nothing syrupy about this he's not saying oh I'm so in love with you Lord you have no idea Oh sauly I do he's being honest because sometimes you know error people you'll get acts a little serving is like oh come on you're not there yet but I do believe God really responds to this he says I will love you O Lord my strength this is David loving God in a moment being fully convinced that God is listening to that and he esteems it and he's doing this this is what's so staggering he's doing this coming out of 16 month of failure and compromise been out of God's will and he knows it this is the day after the roughest most negative season of his spiritual life and he writes I will love you I don't feel it my track record is abysmal I got everybody and everything saying I'm doomed to fail but I'm still here setting my heart to love you God I am NOT packing away I'll tell you on this determination is vital because I in a fallen world the natural inclination of my heart is for darkness Jesus talked about the final days before his coming in Matthew 24:12 he said because of the increase of wickedness Reeta with me the love of most people will grow cold that's where we're at it's called entropy it's the chaos so where things just naturally go when I stop being intentional about setting my heart things go south fast I never want to underestimate the power saying I'm gonna love you Godric God regardless of my track record regardless of what things look like regardless of what shape I'm in regardless of what my circumstances look like I am going to keep the first commandment so one thing I am sold out to do with my one and only life I am never gonna stop resetting the compass of my heart to love you this is the reality right now you were either moving closer to God are you drifting away from your heart is either getting warmer or colder there's no middle ground there's no neutral zone you never reach a place spiritually where you arrive because there's a young guy I really thought that was I was gonna get there I thought man if I can ever just get up this mountain and really love God I'm gonna build a house up there and live but I quickly realize I am I mean over the years I just see I'm up the hill and down hill and up the hill and down there I'm always you know gaining ground or losing ground and the only way I have found to keep the ground I gained is to keep taking new ground that's the only way this works I got to keep resetting my heart I got to keep giving myself to God I can't ever rest on my laurels and go look at where I am look at this you know I keep saying god I'm in a marathon we're in a marathon here this is not a wind sprint we are praying for endurance god help us to go hard after you help us to go the distance help us to finish the race to finish the course to get the crown of life that's what I'm after I don't think every Christian gets it I think Jesus a saint come on come after me I'll give you more than you asked for cut out David saw that here in Psalm 37:4 he said delight yourself and the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart he's saying this is why keep this up it's Who I am this is the real desire of my heart this is true north god god is my delight not being king not being married not other kids not living in a palace it's loving God God sometimes blesses us with possessions or position power privilege but he knows that if we put any of that first we'll be miserable see God installed our wiring he knows how we work he knows we can never be fulfilled any other way he knows that it is only in his presence that there's fullness of joy in 2019 David be praying God I'm gonna turn a bunch of stuff off and downsize my gadget collection I'm gonna fast and pray and go hard after you even when I don't feel anything when your word and prayer seem like the most boring thing I could do I'm coming after you I'm gonna come on a sunny afternoon and I'm gonna sit and I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna lock in i'ma learn to dial down in this culture we are so trapped and mesmerized by our smartphones in the internet we can't be solid enough to even sense our brokenness need for God delighting in the Lord is a determination of our will it's saying God I am doing this I believe that you have what I need and you really are the desire of my heart I'm telling you God will meet you in the quest in the pursuit David understood the power of this his humility and love got God saying you know this kid gets it I can bless him with stuff and it's not gonna mess him up I don't think God can say that about most of us because our heart keeps going all over the place and God saying look you get your heart set on me I'll fulfill the desires we are david says make God your chief delight and in time he will give you the true desires of your heart not the latest whim of the moment because I live long enough to know thank you God for not giving me all that stuff I asked for when I was kid haven't you don't you look back and go oh that would have been a bad bad bad bad bad thing if you delight in the Lord here's the bottom line he will give you holy spirit desires he will give you the stuff that will really do it for you because he's the only one who knows what those things are he installed that in you in Psalm 107 David said he satisfies the thirsty he fills the hungry with good things some 103 5 he satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the Eagles you keep pursuing God he's gonna let you find it your cold heart is gonna melt things are gonna come online for you spiritually that weren't there before you're gonna suddenly realize that your appetite your desires have changed you will discover who you are what you were created for after losing about 90 pounds several years back I got a lot of questions about food and when I started eating differently I'm gonna be honest with you the biggest thing that sent me into panic was the thought that I would never be full again for the rest of my life and you can laugh that that was not laughing 'maybe laughing matter for me I was serious I mean it's ridiculous as that sounds I would pass a fast food restaurant thing kind of go into mourning I literally would I mean I'd kind of just get overwhelmed just thinking out we'll never be super-sized again for the rest of my life what am I gonna do I will never feel full I will live the rest of my life with my stomach gnawing at me now what I discovered was something amazing I was experiencing what doctors are now calling it toxic hunger and and soon I found out that I really had no idea what full felt like the junk food that I'd been consuming was leaving me nutritionally malnourished and that's what all the latest studies are program uses it was it sounded so that sounds are so ridiculous but it was true you know we're eating stuff our bodies don't recognize as food so we're always malnourished we're always hungry for more which causes us to eat more of this stuff and since we can't process it into energy by burning it it just hangs that on us as fat so that's what's going on and I would gorge to try to compensate I was always overeating sometimes I'd benjin and what I started to discovers once the addictions settle down and I'm not gonna lie to you it was addiction addiction is clearly what was going on I had the shakes trying to get off some of this stuff but once that began to settle down I discovered this amazing satisfaction that came over me when I was eating the stuff our Creator designed to nourish our bodies in fact it shocked me because I don't read that stuff you know and in those books and think odd it was written by a cult of edgy worshippers you know these people are a cult but I was wrong I was wrong vegetables were the very thing I was craving ah ah now here I am 60 almost 60 years old that time finally figuring out what full feels like is that amazing I discovered my body can run for hours feeling full energized basically the plant rich diet heavy on the greens is that not weird I didn't believe that was possible now if you're wondering where in the world were you going with that well the same principle applies same principle applies here young people please listen to me on this please listen to me nobody else is telling you this your heart is craving God all this stuff the world is trying to sell you excitement pornography sex popularity it's not gonna do it for you someday one day real soon you're gonna wake up and go why do I feel so depressed why do I feel so Holloway - I feel like my life has no meaning don't buy the devil's commercials it's junk food so why David said as a young guy Psalm 34:8 taste and see that the Lord is good blessed happy is the one who takes refuge in him if you're you know you're in your 20s or below you know you need to understand David wrote a lot of this in as a young guy he locked into this he locked into this when no one else was into this I mean there had to be a lot of days David was going why is nobody seeing this what does no one know that God is so good there's power in this decision to love God with all your heart and it is a decision it's one I have to renew twenty to fifty times a year and sometimes every day because I get anxious and panicked and pressured by problems and life and stuff and I have to do the same thing you don't have to stop and say to myself wait whoa whoa slow down and this is how I have to say it my life is not about Grace Church I love this church I love my job I love all you people I'm so grateful God's putting me here but my life is about loving God my goal in life is to love the Lord my God with all my heart with all my soul with all my mind with all my strength if I get that wrong I fail at life I don't care how many people come to this church I don't care what our history looks like if I get that wrong I mess up the whole thing this is on the final this is what my one and only live will be evaluated by Ron how well did you love it's on your final two just to let you know I am tired of losing this focus I said a little frustrated you know I'm tired of doing stuff that God didn't ask me to do I wanted everything to come out of this heart connect this relationship with Jesus cuz he said look when you're doing things with me my yoke is easy my burden is light you're you're disconnected right now that's why things are heavy being in a relationship with God is the key to everything you're looking for right now and here's the good news no matter how long you've been going your own way God will meet you right where are you far if you'll turn around you don't have to get everything figured out you don't have to even get your act together that was that's amazing in it just just come as you are and all your addiction and all your failure and all the demonized state you're in just come as you are God did all the heavy lifting before we even knew we had a problem but Bible says in Romans 5:8 that God demonstrates his own love for us in this read it with me while we were still sinners Christ died for us the gospel isn't believe in Jesus and clean up your act stop messing up and then we'll talk because none of us can do that the gospel isn't about what we do or stop doing it's all about what Jesus did salvation is in a matter of trying it's a matter of trusting I used the analogy over Christmas that you know of endlessly treading water to keep from drowning and finally just leaning back and giving up only the discovery are now floating and that's all we come to God you know Anna posture of surrender we have to realize we're we got nothing to bring to this table you can't save yourself you come to Jesus and childlike faith it's all based on his death and resurrection the moment you believe in Jesus you get the gift of eternal life that's not that's the whole ballgame that's what saves you from the power and eternal consequences of sin hell is a real place Jesus talked about it more than heaven nobody said more about Hell than he did and he also made it clear he's the only way of escape in John 14:6 he said I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the Father except through me you you can't call Jesus a great teacher and deny his teaching he's either a liar he's a lunatic or he is who he said he is he's the only way to heaven you're gonna run into people say oh I believe Jesus is great teacher well jesus said I am the way the truth and the lie I want you to take out that little card you received and I cannot believe I've carried mine around all night and now I don't have it can somebody give me one if you don't have one would you would you raise your hand and let them give you one all right you'll need one but just raise your hand the cutters do you guys have them yes you do thank you if you guys all over the building I'm doing this for two reasons and one is to equip those of you who have already believed to be able to share your faith and - for those of you never really understood the gospel I think this is gonna help clarify it in a way maybe it never you've never seen it now I want to tell you before we get into this these words have power to change someone's eternal destination keep your hand up though they're still running around here so alright Paul says this in Romans 1:16 for I am not ashamed of the gospel I mean these words have just come online for me he said I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the gospel it is the power of God that brings salvation everyone who believes these words can bring a dead spirit to life so you want to be able to internalize this you want to be able to say this to somebody when I teach a message like this I'll spend all week staring at these words and these truths saying them over and over and over again in prayer and that's why I can stand up here and I can speak them to you with conviction so this has nothing to do with eloquence or space inability I mean you can bumble this and botch the words and it still works you say how do you know that cuz I did it I did it as a young guy man I am amazed at how these words will work even when you just oh man I really botched that up no no I really got it I felt like something happened when you said that Oh Lord there is power in these words there's power in the gospel so I'm gonna give you six sentences that are prompts okay think of it think of it this way these are not this is a prompt if you you've been listening to me some of you over and over and over go over this so you've already got the idea in your head these are the prompts that'll help you to just share the gospel all right so six sentences this the concept came from Greg sphere he wrote the book the gospel in six words I like sentences better it just it's it's maybe it's just personal preference because the acrostic he uses a little confusing to me but we do sell his book all right in the bookstore for I think two bucks and it's really good but it's it's same idea all right here are the facts God created us in fact just read it with me God created us to be with it I hear this we're made in His image he breathed the breath of life into us we have its DNA there's no other creature being like us we're not like the angels or animals or any other miscreation we're made to be his eternal family but for love to be real it has to be reciprocal and that was a glitch and him and Eve disobeyed the one command God gave him they died spiritually and that death spread to the whole human race we're all born with the sin disease like The Walking Dead you know we all have it and number two all right that that disease along with it say with me our sins have separated us from God the minute Adam and Eve disobeyed they died first so they immediately you remember the story immediately fraid of God they hide the nobody had to tell they instinctively knew and that's the human condition we know you know there's there's something that we cringe but that's our sin our sins have separated us from God here's number three but it's even worse really with me those sins cannot be removed by our good deeds or any other thing we can do even if reincarnation was true we could never come close to getting it right because we're broken at the heart level it's inside as an inside job and we got nothing to pay for those sins with God says even our best deeds are filthy wrecks because he sees the duplicity in our arts he sees you know the deal or wheeler thing you know that we got going so god fixed the problem by sending his own son to become one of us forever and here's what happened let's read number four Jesus died as a sinless human and rose again to pay the full price for all of those sins I like to quote the Apostle Paul here saying that God was nailing our sins to Jesus cross as the sinless human thinking about that Jesus was a sinless human that he had to qualify he had to be one of us and he had to be sent us as a sinless human he was dying on that cross absorbing our sin as he died he as our substitute second Corinthians 5:21 Paul says this way said God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God and that's why number five is true all right everyone who trusts in him alone has eternal life now these were Jesus famous words John 3:16 for God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life believing in Jesus alone is what changes the picture and it gets better number six ready eternal life is God like just stop there it's a new quality of life it's not just forever life its new life that starts now it begins now yeah and lasts forever John 10:28 Jesus said I give them eternal life and they shall never perish no one will snatch them out of my hands when you trust Jesus Christ he comes into your life he will never leave or forsake you that's his promise and he his love will begin to free you from the fear of death and slavery to sin and addiction and we got people all over this room who can attest to that you won't just know about Jesus you will actually come to know Jesus and develop a deep personal relationship a friendship that lasts forever Christianity is not a religion it's a relationship so if you don't have a personal relationship with God it can begin right now here's the essence of it again God's son came to her as one of us he lived a sinless life as a human and died in our place so he could be right and making us right this is the good news the Apostle Paul said received the Lavi offers you let him forgive your sin let him save you from hell that you be made right with God let him do the work let him do what he came to do let him do what he wants to do in your heart in your life right now let him set you free from the power of your sin let him recreate your dead spirit let him give you eternal life now this is something only you can do you say well as raising church doesn't matter has nothing to do with church you were raised in or how you're baptized in an infant this is something that Bible says to as many as received him he gave the right to become a child of God this is why you're not getting traction this is you're leaning on religion you're not ruling on the fact that God loves you and wants a relationship with you and that's made a way for that to happen I want you to bow your head with me how many of you sitting here would say you know what I want in that makes sense to me I has never made this much sense before and if you're feeling that that's because the holy spirit's shining the light on your heart he's inviting you into his family you could not see that you would not understand this this would not make sense to you if the Holy Spirit wasn't speaking to you and if that's happening for you right now you need to respond to it so I'm going to just raise your hand say pray for me I'm not gonna do anything with it no one's looking around but just say pray for me pray for me right now I want in on this all right all right yes we're gonna we're gonna agree on this right now all right let's all stand up together now this is just I'm just gonna lead you in a prayer you can just acknowledge this in your heart you know I actually just you know even if you just whisper the words at least you know get the words coming out of your mouth just say god I know my sins have made it impossible for me to relate to you and there's nothing I can ever do to change that but Jesus I believe that you died in my place as a sinless human you bore my guilt and you came out of that tomb as proof that my sins are forgiven so right now I put my total trust in you I can't make myself right but I receive your forgiveness and the free gift of eternal life inviting you to come and live in me hey I asked you to empower me to live for you and love you with all of me now let me pray for you Father let the reality of your Holy Spirit right now just touch every person specifically everyone that said it for the first time let the shell-shocked of that just resound God caused eternal life right now to be birth in the spirit of every person that said those words and open their hearts to you God come Holy Spirit fill them now with your presence and your power touch them and counter them let them know that you're real your love is real in Jesus name

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Rating: 4.9252338 out of 5

Keywords: gracestl, gracechurch, saint, louis, rontucker, ron, tucker, love, God, grace, stl, prayer

Id: txQhbtgvRCU

Length: 44min 44sec (2684 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 10 2019