In Touch Ministries

Guest (Male): Multitudes of people will go through life. They will never learn to love God, they'll never learn to receive the love of God. Therefore, they'll never learn to love themselves, they'll never learn to love others. They may cohabitate with each other. They may relate to each other, but they'll never learn to love one another. They'll never be able to feel and to sense the greatest emotion God ever placed in a human heart. And that is the emotion to feel the love of God, to love Him in return. You cannot love somebody you do not give yourself away to.

Service, obedience, evangelism. These staples of Christian life are all important, but there's one thing that should fuel each of them, and that's love. Today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, we'll explore a key teaching of Christianity. That is that it's through faith in Christ that we are liberated to love. Let's listen in to Dr. Stanley's message.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Have you ever pondered seriously why God allowed you to be born? Well, more than likely you've thought about it, but the question is what kind of a conclusion did you come to? Or did you come to any conclusion, or did you just say, "Well, I just guess I was born and here I am, and I'll make the best of it."

Well, the reason God allowed you to be born is in order for God to express His wonderful love to you. You may not feel it, you may not even understand anything about the love of God, but that's why you were created.

Not only that He could express His wonderful love to you, but that you could love Him in return. And you see, when man fell in the Garden of Eden and sin came into this world, it just really fouled up our capacity to understand the love of God, to receive the love of God and to love Him in return.

But that's why Jesus came, to liberate us from the power of sin in our life so that you and I could love God Almighty with all of our heart and that we could receive His love for us. And that's what I want to talk about in this message today, and I want to begin a series entitled "Liberated to Love."

And I want you to turn if you will to Luke chapter 10. In Luke chapter 10, a familiar passage of Scripture, Jesus makes it very clear that you and I were created to love. And you recall, this is the incident where they're asking Him a question about the law, and in the 25th verse of this 10th chapter, the Scripture says, "And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?'"

And He said to him, "'What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?'" And he answered and said, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.'" And He said to him, "'You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.'"

Now, I want us to look first of all at this whole idea of the nature of love. In the New Testament, for example, there are two words for love. One of them is agape love, which is a sacrificial kind of love. The other is phileo love, like we get Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. Phileo love is an affection, an approval, a friendship kind of love.

The other word for love, which is not found in the New Testament, is the word eros, from which we get the idea of physical love or passion or sexual love. The first two are found in the Scripture; the other one is not.

And of the 300 and some times that love is found in the Bible, 185 times of it is found in the New Testament, and of those times 140 some are sacrificial love, agape love. So, when we talk about the love that God has for us here, when you talk about love, you're talking about this kind of attitude: that love always asks, "What's best for the other person?"

Love asks the question, "What can I be and what can I do in your behalf? What can I be to edify you and to grow you up into Christ's likeness and to build you up?" Love is always looking out for the other person, and love is gentle and kind. Love is forgiving and loyal and faithful and true, and love has many, many qualities, which we'll come to in this series. But just to get us started in this whole aspect of why God created us to be lovers, simply to say that love is always asking the question, "What's best for the other one? And what can I do and what can I be in your behalf?"

And so, God created you and me to love us. And what is He always asking us? He doesn't have to ask us any question, but what is He always doing? He's always expressing that love according to what we need Him to be for us. What our needs are at the moment. And He is faithful and loyal and loving and kind, and you see, true love doesn't keep score.

True love doesn't have a book, it keeps score, "You did this and this and this," because you see, true, genuine love is a forgiving love. And God has given us the pattern by which we are to love ourselves and we're to love others. When we think about the kind of love that He has, this unconditional love of God that knows no conditions. It doesn't make any difference who we are, what we are, where we've been, where we're going, His love for us is absolute.

There are no conditions to His love, no ifs, no ands, no buts, no conditions whatsoever. When we experience the love of God, we are being absolutely, genuinely loved, penetrated every facet of our being by a love that knows no limitations and that is absolutely complete and full and contenting. There's nothing in the world like experiencing the love of God.

Now, let's look at that love for just a moment because He says, "We are to love Him." He says, "If you want to know what the whole law is all about, here's what it's about. It's about loving God and then loving others as yourself." So first of all, let's look at this idea of loving God.

Now, He said to these people who the scribes and Pharisees and others who were there asking questions, what He did, He's referred them back to the law of Moses and the command of Moses that they knew. So, I want you to go back if you will to the sixth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy. The fourth and fifth verse. Look at this fourth and fifth verse of the sixth chapter of Deuteronomy.

He says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might."

Notice if you will, He says, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." The word God is Jehovah, the faithful covenant keeper, the faithful one, absolute in faithfulness. Lord, Elohim, infinite in power.

So, He says, "Hear, O Israel, the one who is the faithful covenant keeper, the Lord Almighty, the Lord God, infinite in power." He says, "You're to love Him with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your might."

Now, it's interesting, when you look in the Scriptures, that in the Old Testament, five times God says He's a jealous God. Now, if you and I said to someone that that person is jealous, we would imply that there's something about their character, their attitude that's not right and needs to be changed. But when God declares that He's jealous, what He's expressing is this: that His love for us is of such nature and of such quality, and is so absolutely essential and important to everything about our life because it's the very purpose for living, that He desires that we be so committed and tuned in to Him, that anything that competes with our love and our loyalty to Him absolutely does not fit who we are.

We are to love one another, we are to love ourselves, we are to deeply love each other, but nothing is to take priority over our love for Him. Go back to Exodus chapter 20 and the 10 commandments. You'll notice in Exodus chapter 20 how He begins the 10 commandments very strongly and what He begins it with.

He says, "Then God spoke of all these words, saying, 'Verse 2 of chapter 20 of Exodus, notice now in each of these five times, He says the same thing, 'I am the Lord your God.'" And if you'll notice, Lord is always in capitals. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. You shall not worship them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children on the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me."

Now, look if you will in Deuteronomy chapter 4 and the 24th verse. Notice what He says. He says, "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God."

And again in the fifth chapter and the sixth chapters, each time He says that God is a jealous God. Now, He is jealous because God knows that whenever our allegiance and our loyalty and our devotion has any competitors in our life whatsoever, and we put other things and other people before we do Him, there is an idol in our life. And God says He hates idolatry.

If you go back to the Old Testament, for example, the most the most scathing denunciation of the people of Israel was always because they fell into idolatry. They worshipped Baal, they worshipped all kinds of gods and these other religions came along and they had all kinds of things to worship, and He says He hates all of those things. He hates anything and despises anything that competes with our love and devotion, loyalty to Him. Why? Because that's the very reason you and I exist. We exist for the purpose of being recipients of the love of God and loving Him in return.

Any form of idolatry that competes with that, God says He hates it. Now, all the idols weren't destroyed in the Old Testament, and all the idols don't belong to other religions today because there are many idols, whether it is the idol of sports or the idol of money or the idol of sex or whatever it may be, business, position, prominence, prestige, fame and money, whatever it might be. An idol can be anything that comes between God and ourselves, grabs our attention and directs our thoughts and dominates and controls our life. God hates it.

He says, "I created you for Me. I created you to express this wondrous, incomparable, indescribable love of Mine. This forgiving love of Mine to you in such a fashion that you would understand who I am, that you would know Me as the one true God, and knowing Me, that you would desire to worship Me, and desire to serve Me, that you would praise Me and honor Me, not only by your lips but also by your conduct."

And so, since we are created to be lovers, if we miss learning to love God and being loved by Him and experiencing that, no matter what we accomplish and what we do in life, we've missed the whole purpose for living. And so, God hates all forms of idolatry.

He says in this passage, "How are we to love Him?" Certainly not half-heartedly. We're to love Him with all of our heart, the seat of our emotion. All of our soul, the very core of our personality. With all of our mind, our mind is to be consumed with Him, and all of our strength. That is, this isn't some half-hearted kind of devotion to Him. This is absolute, genuine, total submission and loyalty and devotion and love to Him.

He is the center and the core of our life, and everything is to revolve around Him. And if you'll think about your life for just a moment, when you're going to make a decision, what's the first thing you ask? Will it profit you? What will somebody else think? What does the Lord Jesus Christ think? If He's the center of my life, if He is and He is to be the very core of our being, then everything must get sifted through Him. Everything revolves around Him.

We are alive to receive and to return, to reciprocate in love to Almighty God. And so therefore, if our life is lived at any time apart from Him, we have forgotten our very purpose for living. There is no other reason to be in existence than the fact that God chose to create us to love us and to express that love. He didn't need us.

He could have created a world with all kinds of things, but without us. But God chose to create us to love Him. He is so full of love, He is absolutely the essence of love, and love is so absolutely important to God, and it is such an essence of who He is, what He wanted to do is to give Himself to us. And how was the best way for God to give Himself to us? For you and me to enjoy what He is. The Bible says that God is spirit, God is light. God is holy. God is love. All genuine love stems from Him, it flows from Him.

And so, what did He do? He created all of humanity to be able to experience what He was, and that is what He is and that is love. And so, God has created us to be lovers. Lovers of Almighty God, first of all. And if I genuinely love Him, I will submit myself to Him. I will ask, "God, Father, what is best for You in my life today? What do You want me to be and to do in Your behalf today? How do You want me to represent You today, Father?"

Because love is always giving, and love is always yielding, and love is always expressing itself. And so, when He says, "God is love," He is the essence of all love, and He came, listen, He sent the Lord Jesus Christ as a living, walking demonstration of what it's like. Think about this. No place that I know of in the gospels that Jesus ever said to anybody, "I love you." He never said it. But what was He always doing? Expressing it.

He knew how to express the Father's love. And Jesus Christ came into this world to show us, to demonstrate to us what genuine love is all about. The highest pinnacle of the essence of love is when He went to the cross, absolute, total, sacrificial love for sinners like ourselves. He says, "We're to love Him with all of our heart, all of our soul, all of our mind, all of our strength."

Now, why are we to love Him? I mean, why love Him? Well, think about this, is He not worthy of our love? Look what He's done for us. He has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. Has He not committed Himself to us? That if you and I trust Him as our personal savior, no matter what we go through in life, He's going to take us home to heaven. The Bible says that the Lord Jesus Christ went back to heaven to prepare a place for you and me. Has He not committed Himself to answer our prayers, to give us divine guidance and direction throughout our life? Has not Almighty God made this awesome, unbreakable commitment and covenant relationship with us?

Do we not love this God of ours? Probably most people do not. We're to love Him because He's worthy of our love, because of what He's done for us, because He has loved us first. No one of us that, "I think I'm going to love God, maybe I can get Him to love me." Now, I say that people don't say that, but in essence, that's exactly what a lot of people do.

They think somehow, "I've got to get God to love me." And so, they decide that if I do the following things, maybe God will love me. My friend, listen to me carefully. You can't get this omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, indescribable, incomparable, immeasurable God to love you one bit more than He already loves you and loved you before you were ever born. You do not have to do anything to get God to love you. Listen, that's why He created you to love you. And secondly, you can't ever do anything bad enough to cause God to stop loving you.

And no matter how hard His disciplined hand comes down, that has nothing to do with the fact that He does not love you. It has to do with that He does love you. Most people are going to go through life never loving God. They will have a relationship and they'll talk to Him and they'll pray to Him, but they will never experience the love of God. Because the truth is He will always be slightly distant out there. They get on their knees and talk to Him up yonder.

Or they'll talk to Him, but somehow, God being this genuine, loving Father, who wants to pour out His love upon me, and pour out His love in me, and pour out His love through me. That's what He wants above everything else. That's why He created us.

And so, He says, "He first loved us before you and I ever thought about loving Him." And the truth is you can't know Him. You can't really know God unless you love Him, and you can't love Him until you know Him. And so, you see, that's why Jesus came. He says, "I came," that He came that you and I may know the Father. And to know Him is to have eternal life.

And what He did, He came to connect us to the Father, so we could fulfill the Father's purpose in our life. Jesus came to liberate us from the power of sin in our life and to so transform us by the new birth that you and I would have a new spirit, and a new life, and a whole new perspective, so that now we could love God because we have a spirit that is able to love Him and to receive His love in return.

That's why people who have rejected the Lord Jesus Christ have rejected the Father. Somebody says, "Well, you know, I believe in God but I don't believe in Jesus." Forget it. Or, "I know God, I have a relationship with God, but forget Jesus Christ." He says, "You can't know the Father till you know Him." That's why He came. He was so intent on you and me knowing Him, and knowing Him as the lover of our soul, the lover of our total being, He sent His only begotten Son to do what? To liberate us from the power of sin so that we could experience this awesome love of Almighty God.

I say again, to live your life and never learn to experience the love of God or to love God in return is to live your whole life and miss the purpose of God. And that is exactly what many people, most people will probably do. They think they know how to love God. They think, "Well, yes, I, I'm sure I I I do know how to love God."

Well, the truth is, they don't. And if you should ask them, "Well, how do you love God?" One four-letter word: O-B-E-Y, obey Him. That is an expression of our love. Now, if my purpose for being alive is to receive His love and to love Him in return, if I fail to receive His love, and if I fail to love Him in return, then I have lost. Listen, when I think about going through life and never learning to love God, what I would have missed. And going through life and never being able to receive that love, what I would have missed.

When you think about loving God and and how you and I would love Him, we miss the purpose of life, we miss the blessings of life because to live this life without God, personally, I don't understand how anybody lives this life without God. I mean, listen, there has got to be this huge, empty hole in your soul, my friend. You can fill it up with a thousand things, relationships and money and prestige or whatever it may be. You will never be able to fill the gap in your heart that Almighty God created for Himself, and it is first place in your life.

Everything else is second, third, fourth, thousandth, whatever it may be. But to live your life apart from God is to live with this big, huge emptiness and people are cramming and jamming and seeking and searching anything, everything they can to fill up that place. And you can't fill up that place. That place, it is in the image of God and nothing else fits there but God Himself.

Guest (Male): As Dr. Stanley's message uncovered that sense of emptiness in your life, only God can fill the vacancy, and the only way to have a relationship with Him is by believing that He forgives the penalty of your sin through trusting in His son, Jesus Christ. If you want to review what you just heard, head to intouch.org and you can click on today on radio, and be sure to look around our website for content that can encourage you to remain faithful to Jesus.

And if you'd like a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete message today, you can order it from our online store. The title is "Created to Love," or order his teaching set, "Liberated to Love." Again, log on to intouch.org or call or text us, the number is simply 1-800-IN TOUCH. And to write to us, address your letter to In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia, 30357, or 1-800-IN TOUCH.

Have you been drifting away from the Lord? Here's how to get back on track coming up in today's moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: With the 30 Life Principles Bible Study, you'll enjoy a rich exploration of God's Word. Designed as a 90-day learning experience for individual use or in a group setting, you'll explore Dr. Stanley's 30 Life Principles, and learn how to make the Bible a part of your everyday life because we can all benefit from a closer look. To order the 30 Life Principles Bible Study, call 1-800-IN TOUCH or visit intouch.org/store.

There is an inexplicable joy that comes from understanding Scripture and learning how to apply it in our own life. The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Bible includes 30 foundational truths that Dr. Stanley has learned from over 60 years of ministry. It's available in the New King James Version, New International Version, the King James Version, and New American Standard Bible Version. To order, call 1-800-IN TOUCH or go to intouch.org/store.

Guest (Female): Dr. Stanley devoted his entire life to helping us. Get closer to Jesus, as we all want to do. So, are you ready for the next step in your journey? It begins at the Charles Stanley Institute.

Guest (Male): You can learn how at charlesstanleyinstitute.org.

Guest (Female): You're listening to In Touch. What should you do when you find yourself drifting away from God? With advice for believers, here's a moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: It's one of the wisest things you can do to keep from drifting. When you wake up in the morning, before you get out of bed, you say to Him, "Father, today," or, "Lord Jesus, today, here and now, I surrender my entire life to You for this day." Then when something comes along, the Spirit of God's going to remind you, "Uh-uh, that's not surrendered, you're having your way now."

When you make a genuine commitment, "I surrender my entire life to You today," it's amazing the impact. You know what it's like? It's like God gave you this radar system and it's reaches way out there, you can see it coming down the track, and God reminds you, "Remember, you laid all that down. And you surrendered everything to Me today."

Now, we have to stay on guard, you have to be on guard. Now, let's say, I've been drifting, how do I get back? Well, first of all, you acknowledge and recognize the fact that you've been drifting away from Him. Secondly, you confess it and repent of it, which means I take an about face.

It's one thing to read the word of God and say, "Well, I'm going to talk to God about this and so forth." No, it's not enough. Repentance means change, a change in my way of thinking about the way I'm living. So, wherever you are in the drift, it's like, I want to get back where I ought to be. I acknowledge I'm drifting, I confess it before God, I repent of it, and I surrender myself to Him.

Guest (Male): You can learn more about living a consistent Christian life with our resources at intouch.org. Has the good news of the gospel changed your life? Well, if this program has been a part of that journey, we'd love to know. When In Touch continues next time, our first priority is to love God and then to love people. When our series continues, you'll hear how to express an honest love for those around you. I hope you'll join us again for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on the station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.