BIBLICAL ELEMENTS FOR DAILY LIVING- 03
TEXT: "Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; 20 Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." (Hebrews 6:19-20)
I. ALL COMPELLING LOVE
A. What is your love? It is all consuming sacrificial love in which you are willing to lay down your very life expecting nothing in return?
B. Or is your love an exchange love? A love that is based upon what Christ has done for you.
C. Some love Christ with a shallow kind of affection serving Him within their own convenience for benefits they may receive.
D. These types of love will not do. It must be the love that sent Him to the cross. In this love we find Christ our all in all, our Anchor in the troubles seas, our pleasure and joy, our very LIFE.
E. Some Christians see their joy in Christ and in pleasures of this world.
"But rejoice, inasmuch as ye
are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed,
ye may be glad also with exceeding joy."
(1 Peter 4:13)
It cannot and does not work. Christ
is all and in all. With that sacrificial love to Christ we find that our joy is
complete and running over.
F. In this love that pours into our very live either as a living sacrifice or a martyr -- is LIFE.
"Set your affection on things
above, not on things on the earth.3 For ye are dead, and your life
is hid with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is our life, shall
appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory." (Colossians 3:2-4)
G.
Life on this earth is so short.
But it seems that men spend a lot of time caring for the body. Life is captivated by ambition, obtaining things and position. Ambition holds men as slaves to its
will. What little of ourselves is free
we must give our attention to the things of God.
II. PARTING THOUGHTS
A. I am a love slave to Christ in whom is life. Praise God for life eternal offered to every man. Every man? Yes, but, (flip side)
"For the love of Christ constraineth us; because
we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead:15 And
that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again." (2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
B. In spite of the above verse there are the unreached who are moving and breathing dead men. Human life is cheap among them. Humans are sacrificed. Life is cheap! Life? They have not life. Life has been offered to them, but they have chosen not to receive it and are dead men and woman walking.
C. God's love, His love that is all compelling is a love that forsakes our self for the opportunity of presenting to them Christ -- the LIFE. Can we say if necessary I will lay down my life to do so. Really??
"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13)
D. The Father sent Christ to lay down His life for us. What an ALL compelling love.
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