Responsibilities Inherent From Following Christ

---

DEVOTIONAL SERIES ON “THE LOVE OF GOD.” (03012013)

Pastor Glen Aycock

SCRIPTURE: PHILIPPIANS 2:1-11

·        1 ¶  If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—
·        2 then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends.
·        3 Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead.
·        4 Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
·        5 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself.
·        6  He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what.
·        7  Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human!
·        8  Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that: a crucifixion.
·        9  Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever,
·        10  so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ,
·        11  and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father.

DEVOTIONAL:  “RESPONSIBILITIES INHERENT FROM FOLLOWING CHRIST”

Dear Child of God . Has following Christ made a difference in your life? Has Living in a community of Spirit filled followers of Christ given you new meaning and purpose? What actions does your heart dictate toward care of others?  This scripture gives ways to show your love for Christ

.

1.      Agree with each other. As believers we should be of one Spirit which will validate God in us.
2.      Love each other as God loves us.
3.      Serve God first, others second, and yourself last. This is the pattern of the Life of Christ on earth.

4.      Don’t be impressed with yourself but rather with the opportunity to share the love of Christ toward sinners. There is no greater pursuit
.
5.      Look forward to the greatest praise service ever when you will join with the prophets of old and the children of God who will call out in praise that “He is Master of all”. Wow I have my ticket reservation, how about you?

Return to Admenu

---

TOUGH LOVE

Posted 3/1/2013

DEVOTIONAL SERIES ON THE LOVE OF GOD 02282013

Return to Admenu

SCRIPTURE:  PHILIPPIANS 1:9-11;     

• 9 ¶ So this is my prayer: that your love will flourish and that you will not only love much but well. Learn to love appropriately. You need to use your head and test your feelings
• 10 so that your love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. Live a lover’s life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of:
• 11 bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.

DEVOTIONAL   “TOUGH LOVE”

Many are familiar with the term ‘tough love’ and this devotional attempts to give a new meaning to the usual application. Paul was writing to the Christians in Corinth. “Corinth was known as an especially "wild” city and had a reputation for licentiousness. Paul was faced with a city that was used to coin one of the Greek words for "fornicate”, which was korinthiazomai! This reputation was based, in part, on the ancient Greek historian Strabo's report that there were 1,000 sacred prostitutes in the temple of Aphrodite on the Acrocorinth, which was a 1,886-foot hill that rises above the City of Corinth to the south.” (Archeological live cam) Paul challenged them to:

• 1. “Let your love flourish.”
• dictionary.reference.com/browse/flourish
• to be in a vigorous state; thrive: a period in which art flourished. 2. to be in its or in one's prime; be at the height of fame, excellence, influence, etc. 
• 
  
• 2...Love much and love well and love appropriately. Notice Jesus deserves all our love! We sing the hymn entitled, “My Jesus I love thee”, and the hymn presents the question, “Do I love my Jesus as much as he loves me”? Take time and think on this today. Commit to Lord you will love him more today.
• .
• 3. Let your love be sincere, intelligent, circumspect, and exemplary of a life that pleases Jesus. Do others see God in my life?
• 4. We are to be bountiful in fruits of the Spirit. (Definition of bountiful= Bountiful means plentiful, abundant or in large quantities. (adjective). When your harvest produces twice as much as it did last year,) 
• 5. Enlisting others to be involved with the Glory and praises of God. Each believer’s heart should be in the praise choir ticking for Jesus.
• 6. Let our prayer be “lead me to some soul today”. God wants you to be a soul hunter for Jesus. This is a responsibility of all believers. So ask God to use your talents today to touch someone with the love of Jesus today. We ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Return to Admenu

ETERNAL LOVE

Posted 2/16/2013

THE LOVE OF GOD

Return to Admenu

SCRIPTURE:  ROMANS 5:5-8; ROMANS 8:38-39

• Ro 5:5 We’re not ashamed to have this confidence, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

• Ro 5:8 Christ died for us while we were still sinners. This demonstrates God’s love for us.

• Ro 8:38 I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love which Christ Jesus our Lord shows us. {The last part of verse 39 (in Greek) has been moved to verse 38 to express the complex Greek sentence structure more clearly in English.} We can’t be separated by death or life, by angels or rulers, by anything in the present or anything in the future, by forces

DEVOTIONAL: ETERNAL LOVE

We cannot imagine how awesome the love of God is toward us. Romans 5:8 explains that Christ died for us while we were actively pursuing sin and being pursued by sin. Our motives were based on selfishness and not righteousness. We were willful sinners.  God chose to demonstrate His love for us by sending his Son to pay the price of sin on the cruel cross. Would you have stayed faithful to the mission of rescuing those who did not love you? I don’t know about you but I think I would have lost it when I was spit on and beaten and gang punched. How amazing that love is and how can we doubt it. It is through Jesus we find true love. This is a love that does not fade and we cannot be separated from it by:

·        Death

·        Life

·        Anything present

·        Anything in the future

·        Forces of demonic attack

Prayer Thought: Dear Jesus thank you for pouring God’s love into our heart. We so need you in our hearts and we praise you for your eternal love. Let us live demonstrating your love to our fellow man. Amen

Return to Admenu

LOVING GOD

Posted 2/15/2013

DEVOTIONAL SERIES ON LOVING GOD

Return to Admenu

SCRIPTURE: DEUTERONOMY 6: 5-9 

• 5 Love GOD, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you; love him with all you’ve got!
• 6 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you
• 7 and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night.
• 8 Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder;
• 9 inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates.

DEVOTIONAL:   “LOVING GOD”

Let us consider the essential of relationship with God. We are commanded that the foundation is to love the Lord our God. The question is, “How”?? Let us listen carefully to the answer and think about it in the next few minutes. The instruction given includes the answer in verse 5. We are commanded to love Him with our whole heart. Notice there no such thing as part time love of God. Neither is there a stop and go angle in loving God. Certainly there is not a halfway effort. Verse urges to love Him with all that is in us and with all the strength we have. This means one hundred percent action employed in committing our love to Him. As a coach I never asked my team for a little effort to be extended on the contest field but to give every last ounce of effort and to go far beyond the comfort zone. That is what God expects of us. We need to step outside the door of convenience and venture forward in active Love of God. This means absolute faith that God is with us and will keep His promises toward us. Let us realize we are on a mission here and our home is faraway on a golden shore; we are here on a mission for our God and King. The first job we need to attend to is to write these commandments on our hearts and then teach them to our children. Let our conversation be about loving God. Dear Jesus help us to increase our Love for You today. Amen.   

Return to Admenu

CONFIRMING YOUR LOVE OF GOD

Posted 2/14/2013

LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

Return to Admenu

SCRIPTURE: I JOHN 4:7-13

• 7 ¶ My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God.
• 8 The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love.
• 9 This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him.
• 10 This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.
• 11 My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other.
• 12 No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!
• 13 This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit.

DEVOTIONAL:CONFIRMING YOUR LOVE OF GOD

How does the world know you love God? The scriptures today give a solid answer to that question. Here are the proponents of true love.

• 1.Love is a continuous flow of loving each other. No stop and go actions.
• 2.Love is an outflow of valid relationship with God.
• 3.Love begins on Gods initiative; God loved us first and sent His Son to be a sacrifice for our sin. It is not His will that any should perish so He provided a way for our sins to be forgiven and relationship restored.
• 4. As we love others God love completes the cycle and is perfected in us.
• 5.We know we live because His love has given us life with a capital “L” that overflows in us through His Spirit. Love rules in our life. Dear Jesus let your love show in us by our love of others. Amen

Return to Admenu

+

REAL LIFE

Posted 2/11/2013

LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE – “REAL LIFE”

Return to Admenu

SCRIPTURE: I JOHN 2: 12-17

• 12 ¶  I remind you, my dear children: Your sins are forgiven in Jesus’ name.
• 13  You veterans were in on the ground floor, and know the One who started all this; you newcomers have won a big victory over the Evil One. And a second reminder, dear children: You know the Father from personal experience.
• 14  You veterans know the One who started it all; and you newcomers—such vitality and strength! God’s word is so steady in you. Your fellowship with God enables you to gain a victory over the Evil One.
• 15  Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father.
• 16  Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him.
• 17  The world and all it’s wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

DEVOTIONAL: CAUTIONARY WORDS

All of us need reminders from time to time. In this scripture we have a list of reminders about the essentials of Christian living. Number 1 reminder is the foundation of living the Christian life.

• •Don’t forget your sins are forgiven and victory is yours over the evil one through a personal experience with the Father. You can’t get this by just living well or by being baptized or church membership. Those things are simply follow through after initially receiving Jesus. This enables the victory chant: “Jesus is mine and He lives in my heart.”
• •Fellowship with God is the enabler of victory in your life. Getting to know God by fellowship with him via prayer, Bible Reading, and sharing Christ with others. Once a week church attendance is not the essential of fellowship.
• •Two loves to avoid is (1) world ways, (2) world goods, only God is the provider of good.
• •Wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, and wanting to appear important has nothing to do with Father but brings isolation.
• •The world is on its way out but living in Jesus sets us for eternity through Jesus who is the very propitiation for our sin. Living for Jesus is making life REAL.
• •In the earlier chapters we were cautioned to forgive and to love others as God loves us.

PRAYER THOUGHT: Dear Jesus increase our love and ability to forgive others as proof that we love and live in you. May our obedience and actions be our token of proof. Amen

Return to Admenu

WHO DO YOU BELONG TO?

Posted 2/10/2013

LIVING THE CHRISTIAN LIFE

Return to Admenu

SCRIPTURE: 2 PETER 2: 20-29

• 20 ¶ But you belong. The Holy One anointed you, and you all know it.

• 21 I haven’t been writing this to tell you something you don’t know, but to confirm the truth you do know, and to remind you that the truth doesn’t breed lies.

• 22 So who is lying here? It’s the person who denies that Jesus is the Divine Christ, that’s who. This is what makes an antichrist: denying the Father, denying the Son.

• 23 No one who denies the Son has any part with the Father, but affirming the Son is an embrace of the Father as well.
• 
  
• 24 Stay with what you heard from the beginning, the original message. Let it sink into your life. If what you heard from the beginning lives deeply in you, you will live deeply in both Son and Father.

• 25 This is exactly what Christ promised: eternal life, real life!

• 26 I’ve written to warn you about those who are trying to deceive you.

• 27 But they’re no match for what is embedded deeply within you—Christ’s anointing, no less! You don’t need any of their so-called teaching. Christ’s anointing teaches you the truth on everything you need to know about yourself and him, uncontaminated by a single lie. Live deeply in what you were taught.

• 28 ¶ And now, children, stay with Christ. Live deeply in Christ. Then we’ll be ready for him when he appears, ready to receive him with open arms, with no cause for red-faced guilt or lame excuses when he arrives.

• 29 Once you’re convinced that he is right and righteous, you’ll recognize that all who practice righteousness are God’s true children.

DEVOTIONAL: “WHO DO YOU BELONG TO”???

Can you say, “I belong to God”? As we begin 2013 it is imperative that you know Jesus the Son of God and the only door to salvation. It feels good to belong and it is lonely and painful not to have that security of knowing you are saved. If you are depending on anything else like good works, church membership or attendance to make heaven then please read these verses again. Concentrate on the essentials of salvation. It starts with confession of who Jesus is. (vv23 & 24). You can have eternal and real life through Christ. (vv. 24). You can have Christ’s anointing, stay with Christ, Live deeply in him. The biggest event in your life will be when Christ returns so be ready to welcome Him.

PRAYER THOUGHT: Thank you Christ for redemption paying for my sins. Will you pray today and claim his as your Savior and Lord. He loves you and is your passport to heaven. Today is the day for salvation.

Return to Admenu