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This week we have a special guest speaker – who is it?
It's Maria! Maria has always loved music and singing. It is said that the more senses you use, the more likely you are to remember something. For instance, if you write it down, read it, and listen to it, you will better remember it. And for Maria, music has always been a way for her to connect and remember things.
Here's a little audio memory aid Pastor Dan and Maria made to go along with this message:
There are so many songs that talk about love. Sometimes when you hear those songs you think that if someone would only love you, everything would be alright. When Maria was growing up she didn't have a relationship with her father and didn't get along with her stepfather. Even though her family and friends loved her very much, she had a feeling that she just needed someone to love her.
The world presents the love that they think we need in a false way – they present things that they think provide the love that we need, but it just leaves us empty. The world can make you feel that you're worthless without love. It seems like you have to find someone or you're nothing; without a boyfriend or girlfriend, life is not worth living.
It can feel like we are nothing without human love. But the truth is that human love and the love of worldly things leaves us empty! Whether it be a person or a thing or a hobby, none of it will give us what we are looking for.
Maria was also the only child of her mother and father. Her parents went on to have 8 other children, and Maria would sometimes wonder where she fit in. Did her parents loved her as much as the younger kids?
But the truth is that Christ loves her, even if no one else in the world does!
When you go to the gas pump, no one really wants to pay the higher price for the high octane gas. If you can get by with the cheaper stuff, why pay more? And in life we often don't want to pay the price for the more "expensive" love because it is too much of a risk. So we buy the cheap, crappy stuff. God's love is like the high octane, high quality stuff, but it's already been paid for by Him!
The word love appears in the Bible over 300 times – it's a very important part of God's word! He really is the God of love!
First let's look at 1 John 4:7-21.
It's a lot of scripture, but let it come alive to you. Christ is where we find true love. God gave His only Son for us!
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors and to love orphans and widows. It's not all about us getting love, it's about loving others! Your family, your friends, your enemies – everyone! No one is excluded! God's love reaches to everyone!
Now check out John 15:10-11: If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
It sometimes may seem that God requires a lot from us, but when we consider what He has done for us, what we give back is so simple.
Romans 5:8 says, But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Jesus died in a horrible, painful way, for us! He loved us so much that He didn't care.
Romans 8:38-39 is a very cool reminder of God's love: For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing, nobody, can separate us from God's Love. We can never be separated from His love!
It turns out that the Beatles actually have a good point: all we really need is love. Not the love of a person, but the love of God.
All we really need is Christ's love. We don't need to be filling our hearts and minds with the love of people and things. That's OK, but there is a love that is greater than all of those things!
Even if you feel that no one else in this world loves you, notices you or cares about you, are you walking in the love of God?
Quick pick-me-ups of love leave you incomplete. It's like applying a Band-aid to a huge cut. But using God's love to fill up your heart covers it all and heals your heart.
How can we show others the love of God? What do you do to show His love to other people? Should we sit at home and ponder? Or should we open our mouths and let people know about God?
We have to start thinking about more than just ourselves and share God's love with others. They are hurting, trying to put Band-aids on huge gaping wounds -- and it's not working! We have the answer for their pain!
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okay so I sound awkward but I still think that the point of the message was good
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