Keystone Church - Saline

Love includes a feeling but it is so much more than just a feeling. Love compels us to action. Christ commanded us to love God and others. But that love is qualified in a really big way in John 13:34-35 when Jesus says, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another." Our culture has a permissive and passive definition of love. Jesus never loved that way. Mark 10:17-31; Luke 6:27-35' John 3:16; John 11:1-6, 35 & 41-44; John 13:1. In compassion Jesus healed (Matt. 14:14), fed people (Matt. 15:32), taught them (Mark 6:34) and raised the dead (Luke 7:11-17). I won't be teaching each passage but referencing them as the way we say the love of Jesus in action. Jesus was the embodiment of God's love. He confronted, he comforted, he taught, he healed, he pointed people to truth and he obeyed God.

It is one thing to make resolutions for the New Year. I'm going to stop doing such and such or start doing such and such are fine resolutions and I'm not against them. But I think we need something more than just some short term goals. It is a question of what do I want to start or stop doing, but where am I headed? Who do you want to be on December 31st, 2020? An even better question is "Who does God want me to be on Dec. 31st, 2020? If we get a clear vision of where we are headed, we will better be able to take the steps needed to get there. It all begins with a deicsion to Love God with all of who we are. Devoting to Him, all of our Heart, all of our Soul, all of our Mind and all of our Strength. This impacts our habits, our decisions and our direction. And all of it is done so that we can love God and love others. Mark 12:28-34. The first thing we have to realize is that Christ's command to love God and love others is only possible when we first decide to make obedience our number one objective.