Personal Love for God – Part 1
Transcript of FLOT Line Episode 540 aired on December 28, 2015
Good morning and welcome to the FLOT Line, F.L.O.T. 30 minutes of motivation, inspiration,
education, all done with no manipulation. We just simply try to give you accurate information,
not human speculation as I say, but accurate information. Where do I get it? From the Canon, the
Bible, the Word of God, and as I give this information to you it is my prayer that you will be able
to verify as well as identify God’s plan for you, for your life. If you can do this, then you always
have the freedom, the privacy, to orient and adjust to the plan. It’s really up to you. No one can
live your life for you and no one can change you. You have volition, you have a chooser, a
decider. God gave you the freedom, He did not make you a little automaton. You can decide what
you want to do with your life and making priority number one the spiritual priority is a very hard
thing to do. Matthew 6 talks about this and says,
“Seek first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness and He will add all of these things that you need.”
That’s your logistical grace
provisions to survive on a daily basis. Our Father is well aware of who you are. Our Father is
well aware of where you are. Our Father is well aware of what you need. You see He is
omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. These are three of the characteristics of His essence:
omnipotent, all-powerful, omniscient, all-knowing, and omnipresent, He’s everywhere. I mean if
you go to church tonight and then you leave church, God doesn’t leave, He’s still there. God is
everywhere. He’s capable of being in Russia and in America at the same time. He’s capable of
being in Alabama and Georgia and Florida and California and Texas and New York at the same
time, that’s His omnipresence. Now our Lord Jesus Christ in a resurrected form sits at the right
hand of the Father in heaven and He awaits the shouted order to return. When He returns, who
knows when this will be, many people write books about it. They try to get you to buy them and
tell you that the return of Christ is imminent. There’s always a danger in trying to compare
Biblical prophecy with current history events. You can’t do this because the Bible says,
“No man
knows the day or the hour,”
but when this does happen, when the Father gives the order and the
Lord Jesus Christ returns, He will come back for us and receive us to Himself. 1 Thessalonians 4,
“And there we will ever be with the Lord.”
In other words the Bible says,
“The dead in Christ
will rise first and then we which remain alive together will be caught up together with them in
the clouds and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
You’ve heard the term Rapture, the Rapture
generation or technically the Exit Resurrection, this is what’ll happen. It’s coming sooner or later
and to be alive when it takes place would be quite an amazing thing. You know when you think
about it, you think about, “What about my life now? What about all the things I enjoy now?
What about all the possessions I have now?” You know, all I can tell you is the Bible says,
“The
eye hath not seen, the ear hath not heard, the heart hath never felt the wonderful things that God
has in store for you.”
It’s beyond your wildest dream. It’s beyond your imagination. You will
never look back. You’ll never regret leaving. You’ll never think what did I leave behind? It will
be amazing and you will be reunited with loved ones and family members. You will see people
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you haven’t seen and learn from people you haven’t met. You will see colors you never realize
existed. You will hear sounds you’ve never heard before. You will be in the presence of God. You
will be in heaven. You know, the Bible talks about heaven, talks about the first heaven, that’s the
atmosphere. The second heaven is the universe. The third heaven is the presence of God. Being
in the presence of God is something that we really can’t fathom. We don’t know what it’s like, we
just have Scripture that talks about it in bits and pieces but it’s real and it’s there and it’s coming.
My prayer is that if you have never made a decision to accept Christ as your Savior that you will
do this, that you will make this decision, that you will put your faith alone in the work of Christ
alone. You know, the Bible says it’s very simple. It says,
“Whosoever shall call upon the name of
the Lord shall be saved.”
Whosoever is me and you and anyone else that wants to do it and you
can do this by prayer. You can simply go to the Father and you can say, “Father I admit I’m a
sinner and I am willing to receive Your Son, Jesus Christ as my Savior.” This is called an act of
faith. When you do this, when you stand before God and you bow your head and you pray a
simple prayer like this, you’re acknowledging that Jesus Christ is God. You’re acknowledging
that Jesus Christ is the Lord and when you do this, you become a Christian, you receive Him as
your Savior. What an amazing thing. See, Christianity is not a religion. It’s not you trying to
impress God. It’s you receiving the gift that God has given you. That’s why John 3:16 says,
“God
so loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son.”
We just came through
Christmas and you celebrated, I hope, the birth of the Savior. That began it all right there. When
the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world by Mary, the virgin Mary, He was here for one reason.
He came through the womb and it was to go to the tomb. That’s exactly why He came and He
went to the tomb, He was buried, but He walked out alive after three days, and He is alive today.
He’s in the presence of the Father and He will return when the Father gives the word. So be
prepared. Don’t put it off, don’t wait until the last minute. If you’ve never made this decision, you
need to make it today and you can have confidence that God will answer this prayer. The Bible
says,
“These things are written so that you may know that you have eternal life. He that has the
Son has life and he that has not the Son of God hath not life.”
If you receive Christ as your
Savior, you have Him, and then He said,
“I’ll never leave you, I will never forsake you.”
He’s not
going to walk out. Once you make a mistake in sin, which you will do, God the Father is not
going to walk out on you. He will be there, He will never turn His back on you. That’s the
promised words of Jesus Christ. You know Jesus said,
“My Father said, ‘I give unto them eternal
life, and they will never perish,’ neither shall any man ever pluck them out of My Father’s hand.
My Father which gave them to Me is greater than all and no man can take them out of My
Father’s hand,”
John 10:28-29. That’s you, you are in the hand of God. You know the FLOT
Line is what our show is called and by the way, let me welcome Kansas City on to the normal
broadcast. When we get a new station, we do 15 or so shows to introduce them to the concept of
the FLOT Line and now Kansas City is up-to-date and so they’re joining the regular broadcast
that everyone else is listening to. FLOT stands for the forward line of troops. We’re using this as
a military analogy of the Christian life. What I’m teaching you is something my pastor taught me
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many years ago, that there are 10 unique problem-solving devices found in the Word of God.
When you learn them and use them, then you can stop the outside sources of adversity well
before they ever become the inside sources of stress. We’ve been through the first five of them,
six of them. Last week we talked about your personal sense of destiny. That’s a wonderful
problem-solving device, but what you have to avoid if you are a believer in Jesus Christ is you
must avoid self-absorption. Self-absorption is one of the characteristics of arrogance. Listen as I
explain something to you. One of the worst sins that anyone can ever commit is to get involved
in arrogance and arrogance always has three steps to it, self-justification, self-deception, self-
absorption. The arrogant person will justify why he’s right and the rest of the world is wrong. He
will always justify his action and by doing so he deceives himself. He thinks that he’s something
he’s not. That’s called self-deception and anyone who has self-deception has an unrealistic self-
image. He thinks he’s something that he’s not and by the way, if he has an unrealistic self-image,
then he’s always going to have unrealistic expectations. If he thinks he’s something he’s not then
he’s going to want to be treated in a way that he’s not worthy of being treated. That’s what
arrogance does, and self-absorption is you becoming so involved with yourself, so preoccupied
with your own destiny, your own life, your own day-to-day decision, you forget about God’s
plan. I know you may have children and you may have grandchildren, you may have a husband
and you may have a wife and there are millions of things going on in your life, especially during
the holiday season after Christmas and headed into the New Year and you’re thinking about so
many things. Do not forget about God’s plan. Concentrating on yourself is very dangerous
because this leads to arrogance, this leads to you justifying things that are not necessary. This
leads to you doing things that take you out of the plan of God, not advancing in the plan of God.
If you want to have a well established FLOT line in your soul, you must concentrate on
God’s Word and God’s plan. You must learn and apply His Word every day.
This is called
developing a divine viewpoint, not a human viewpoint, not what the world thinks but developing
a divine viewpoint. This means that you have to get some grace orientation and understand how
grace works, what grace provides. This means you have to have doctrinal orientation. This means
that you must understand the importance of the Word of God in your life. If you don’t understand
this, then you will always be frustrated as a Christian. You’ll settle for the mundane. You’ll settle
for emotional stimulation. You’ll settle for the entertainment industry in the Christian life and it’s
big, it’s real, it’s a moneymaking machine. It’s out there and the world sees it even though
Christians don’t see it. Some of the latest movies people will go see and say, “It’s great,” they
forget the movies were made to make money because they realize that Christians want Christian
entertainment so they make movies to make money. They weren’t free, you had to pay to get in
to see it. Sometimes a church will rent it or something like that and provide it for the
congregation. It’s always good, when you watch a movie or you listen to a sermon, to make sure
that there is accurate content being provided or taught, content about how to pray, content about
how to witness, content about the true gospel, “How do I get saved? Do I have to work for it or is
it a free gift from God that I simply receive by faith?” As these days go by, you have to define
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your life within the pages of God’s Word. That’s why you hear me constantly say, unless you get
under the authority of a well-qualified pastor you’re going to have a very hard time growing up.
There are men across this country that teach God’s Word consistently and faithfully and you must
find this person. You must sit under the authority of this person and learn God’s Word on a daily
basis. It’s their job to study and teach it, it’s your job to learn it and apply it. That’s why our Lord
said,
“Happiness belongs to those people who hear My Father’s Word and keep it.”
Do you
know why you’re here? Do you get preoccupied with your own problems? Do you lose sight of
your spiritual destiny? If so, the first thing that must be done is to confess the sin, rebound and
recover the filling of the Holy Spirit, problem-solving device number two. You can then maintain
your spiritual momentum, advancing from spiritual self-esteem to spiritual autonomy to spiritual
maturity where you can glorify God to the maximum. That’s what your life in time is about,
glorifying God to the maximum.
Personal love for God is the problem-solving device that
should motivate us.
If I ask you a simple question, I’m sure you would say yes but if I said, “Do
you love God?” You would say, “Well sure I love God.” Let’s look at some Scripture. In
1 Peter
1:8,
“Whom having not seen, you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet you believe and
you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith which is the
salvation of your soul.”
Now you’ve never seen God. As a matter fact sometimes when I’m
speaking to groups of people I’ll say, “How many of you would like to meet God if I told you He
was out in the foyer right now?” They all raise their hands but then I give them the verse where it
says,
“No man can see God and live,”
and the hands go down. You’re not going to be able to see
God until you get to heaven, you don’t have the capacity to be in God’s presence right now. In
John 20:29 the Bible says,
“Jesus said to Thomas, ‘Because you have seen Me, you believed but
blessed are those who have not seen Me and yet they have believed.’”
Now you have never seen
Jesus. He hasn’t come back, He’s still waiting the orders from the Father to return. If you think
you’ve seen Jesus, you need to talk to somebody because He hasn’t come back. If He has, we’ve
been left behind, we’re in trouble. He hasn’t come back yet. He will be coming back, but He has
not yet so you haven’t seen Him. Matthew 22:37 says,
“Jesus said, ‘You shall love the Lord
your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, and with all of your mind.’ This is the
first mandate.”
This is the first commandment, that comes out of Deuteronomy 6:6-7,
“These
words I command you shall be in your heart. Teach them with diligence to your children. Talk of
them when you sit in your house and talk of them when you walk and when you lie down and
when you rise up.”
Do you think the Word of God might be important? There it is, mandated in
the Old Testament and even our Lord mandates it here, loving God.
The only way you’re ever
going to love God is to know God and understand God. Loving God is the greatest
motivational virtue in your life.
In John 5:3 we have a revealing verse. Remember, the question
I asked you, do you love God? Here’s the answer.
“For this is the love of God, that we keep His
mandates and His mandates are not a burden.”
Now that’s a love test, if you love God you will
obey God.
Arrogance won’t obey God, arrogance will justify why it does not have to obey God,
but a person that has humility will obey his Lord. Do you love God? All right, let’s look at a
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verse.
“Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the Word of truth.”
How about you? What sort of life do you have studying
God’s Word? What does your Bible look like? And,
“Grow in the grace and the knowledge of
your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
Are you growing spiritually? Are you a much more mature
person today than you were 10 years ago? Do you know more Scripture? You see, spirituality is
based on the filling of the Holy Spirit but Christian maturity is based on the content of the
Scripture that you have in your soul. Are you growing? See, you’re never going to grow unless
you sit down and study and you’re never going to be able to sit down and dig it out on your own.
That’s why God gave the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher, men that have a gift to study and teach
and extract and give you the principles and the application and the provisions that God has made
for you. They take God’s Word and they exegete it. They teach it using the I.C.E method:
isagogical, categorical and exegetical. They give you the Word of God isagogical, what did this
word mean when it was written? Categorical, how many categories are in this verse? And well-
qualified pastors exegete, take the verse apart line by line, word by word, all the way down so
you see everything that’s in this verse. Every jot and every tittle of the Word of God is inspired
by God the Holy Spirit, the Bible tells us this. The Lord Jesus Christ had an issue with the church
at Ephesus. In Revelation 2 this is what He said,
“I know your works and your labor and your
patience, and that you cannot stand evil, and you test the prophets and you have perceived. You
have patience and you have not become weary,”
but there was something missing. Their faith
had become so technical, not personal. So note what Paul said about this church. It’s very
interesting. Actually in Ephesians 1:15,
“I heard of your faith and your love for all the saints and
keep praying for you,”
and in Philippians 1:9,
“And this I pray, that your love may abound and
still more and more in knowledge and in discernment
[that’s the application of knowledge]
so
that you may approve the things that are excellent and that you may be undefiled without offense
till the day of Christ.”
What was the problem? They left their first love. Revelation 2:4,
“You’ve
left your first love.”
Without personal love for God there’s no motivation to study, there’s no
motivation to grow, there’s no motivation to glorify Him.
How would we recognize a believer
that loves God? How could you tell this? Could you tell it by the way they talk? “Hallelujah
brother. Praise God brother. It’s so wonderful brother to be here with you today brother,” I mean
is that how you tell it? Well let me show you how you tell it. How do you recognize the believer
that has personal love for God, that his love abounds more and more in all knowledge, and in all
discernment? Well, he’s obedient, 1 John 5:3, the verse we looked at.
“If you love Me, you will
obey Me.”
He’s respectful and very cautious, the Bible says, Hebrews 12:27. He’s not controlled
by his emotions and finally, he’s not mechanical or legalistic. He doesn’t lose his spontaneity.
He’s not afraid to do some things freely or naturally without external force or cause. Some people
only pray at certain times of the day, they only give in certain ways, they worship only in one
way. That’s true, the only way to worship is through the teaching of God’s Word, that’s worship.
When you go to church and listen to music, you go to the worship service and, “We’re going to
sing and we’re going to praise God,” that’s nice, that’s wonderful. But you know the Bible talks
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about the watering of the rain of the Word of God. If it doesn’t rain, nothing grows. You don’t
grow by hearing someone sing. You may be encouraged, you may be emotionally challenged,
you may be motivated, but you’re not going to grow. The raining of the Word only comes
through the teaching of the Word.
When God’s Word is taught, the rain comes and nourishes
and your spiritual life grows.
The writer in Revelation, John quoting our Lord said,
“You left
your first love.”
Love for God is your motivation to serve God and they had lost their reciprocal
love motivation. Reciprocal love motivation,
“My little children, let us not love in word or in
tongue but in deed and in truth.”
Reciprocal love motivation means you’re loving God
because He first loved you.
In 1 John 3:23,
“And this is His mandate that we should believe on
the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another as He gave us the mandate.”
In Matthew
22:39,
“Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
In 1 John 4:19 reciprocal love is taught where
it says,
“We love Him
[Why?]
because He first loved us.”
You didn’t find God, God found you.
In eternity past God provided for you. In eternity past God knew your name. God knew
everything about you and here you are now, a Christian, born again, but not growing, not
advancing because you’ve lost your first love. I pray that you will wake up to this. I pray that you
will see that when the Bible says, “Study and grow and learn,” as Jesus said,
“Take My yoke
upon you and learn of Me. My yoke is easy, My burden is light,”
that you will see the importance
of taking in God’s Word and building a Biblical inventory of ideas called divine viewpoint
because this is what you have to base your life on, divine viewpoint. What is this called in the
Bible? Well in Philippians 2:5 it says,
“Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus.”
Did He operate under divine viewpoint? Yes He did. Did He use the faith-rest drill? Yes He did.
In Matthew 4 when Satan tempted Him, He quoted Scripture and stood by faith. One of the
greatest distortions on the part of Satan is to distort this thing we call love.
The love of God has
been so distorted by Satan in every aspect of life.
It’s amazing, we get this idea that we
shouldn’t kill the terrorists or that we should love all the sinners. Yeah, we should love the
sinners and we have to love the terrorists too, Christ died for everyone. Also,
“There is a time to
live and a time to die.”
There comes a time to defend our freedom and our country. This doesn’t
mean that you don’t love God because you defend the freedom of this country, so it’s been
distorted by Satan. See, there are just two kinds of people who claim to love everybody and they
are a drunk and an idiot and neither of these two have any discernment. Love is after all a
distinguishing characteristic of God. God is sovereignty, righteousness, justice, and love. Love,
and it’s an amazing thing that He loves us to start with. What is there in us that’s worth loving?
Nothing, because the Bible says,
“There are none that are righteous, no not one. All of us are
like a filthy rag in His eyes.”
Now you see what grace is? He loves a filthy rag, He loves you.
You want to have fellowship with God? The Bible says,
“He that knew no sin was made sin for
us so that we might be made the righteousness of God through Him.”
You only have fellowship
with God through Jesus Christ. That’s why Christ said,
“I am the way, the truth, and life. No man
comes to the Father but by Me,”
and our Lord doesn’t mandate us to take people out who don’t
believe. That’s the motif of the terrorist, if you don’t convert they take you out. That’s not the
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Christian way. So think about this, do you love God? Are you learning God’s Word and applying
God’s Word? Are you growing in grace?
Personal love for God is the greatest motivational
virtue you’ll ever have.
I hope you’ll think about it. Remember that Revelation 2:4-5 passage
about leaving your first love. Until next week, this is your host Rick Hughes saying thank you
for listening to the FLOT Line.