One Word

John has been writing to answer the question, How do you know?

How do you know Christianity's true and how do you know that

you're a true Christian? How do you know what's dangerous

to you as a Christian? How do you live in light of the

last days? How do you live ready for

Christ's return? All these are questions John has

answered so far in this little New Testament letter of first

John. If you missed any of the answers

to those, you can go back and catch those on previous

messages. John answering how do you know?

As practical as practical can be, The Bible is so practical to

life. Amen.

Basic. How do you know questions.

And now the question we turn to in first John 3 verses 11

1 John 3:11–18

through 18 is how do we know how we are to relate one to another?

How does God want us living as believers toward one another?

How do we know what that looks like?

How do we know what to do? I want you to think about your

answer to these questions, and I want you to try to think in one

word answers. I've titled the message today,

One Word for a Reason. Now, as you think about your

answer, don't answer out loud, but I want you to think in one

word. And the only word you can't use

is Jesus. All right, so that's the Sunday

school answer. Why don't you think in other

answers? But when you think of one word

that comes to your mind when you think about who a Christian is

or what a Christian supposed to be, what one word comes to your

mind when you think about what the Christian life is all about?

What one word comes to your mind when you think about how a

Christian is supposed to live? What one word comes to your

mind? I think if we were to answer out

loud and take a survey, I bet that the one word we would hear

to all of those questions, more than any other one word would be

the one word. Good.

I think people would say, hey, I think a Christian is supposed to

be a good person. I think the Christian life is

about doing good. I think what living as a

Christian should look like ought to look like being good, right?

We, we would probably hear most often that word good.

And good's not necessarily a, a, a, a bad answer.

It's not a bad thing. Good is a wonderful thing.

And yet I think the Bible would have us use a different one

word, a more accurate word, a more radical word, but a more

Christian and more biblical word.

I want you to listen for that one word as we read the Word of

God, as it jumps off the page. You're ready.

First, John 311 through 18. For this is the message that you

have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

We should not be like Cain who was of the evil 1 and murdered

his brother. And why did he murder him?

Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous.

Do not be surprised brothers, that the world hates you.

We know that we have passed out of death into life because we

love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in

death. Everyone who hates his brother

is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life

abiding in him. By this we know love, that he

laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives

for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's

goods and sees his brother in need and yet closes his heart

against him, how does God's love abide in him?

Little children, let us not love in Word or talk, but in deed and

in truth. And the one word for the

Christian life is love. It's love.

The Christian life, mark it down, is a life of love.

You want one word for what it's all about?

You want one word for what? Living as a Christian what being

a Christian, what doing the Christian life.

Good is not a bad word. Good just doesn't cut it.

The biblical word is love. Is there a big difference

between good and love? I think there is.

You know, when we think about something good, we can sometimes

think about ourselves, right? Maybe we think we're pretty

good, but the moment you think about love, you got to quit

thinking about you and you got to think about somebody else.

There's a big difference between good and love, and the Bible's

word is love. The Christian life is a life of

love. So to unpack this text, the

first thing I want you to see here is the one word for the

Christian life is love in your notes, because we are called

friends to love. This is verse 11 through 13.

You know, in one sense he says this is the message you have

heard from the beginning. Now in one sense that message

they have heard from the beginning is the message of the

love of God. That's the message of the good

news of the gospel summarized so well in John chapter 3 and verse

John 3 · chapter mention

16 for God. So loved the world that he gave

his one and only Son, that whosoever would believe in him

should not perish but have everlasting life.

That message is the love of God, the gospel of God.

That's the good news that Jesus loves you, and I mean every

single one of you, every single one.

God so loves you that He did three things for you.

He number one, lived a sinless life for you because you haven't

lived a sinless life. The Bible says all have sinned

and fallen short of the glory of God.

That's a problem because it separates you now and forever

from God unless something is done about your sin that

separates you from God. Jesus lived a sinless life so

that he can #2 go to the cross and die as a sinless perfect

substitute sacrifice in your place for your sin and my sin.

The Bible says without the shedding of blood, there is no

forgiveness of sin. There's no solving the sin

problem unless blood is shed. But the only blood qualified to

for the sins of the world had to be perfect blood of someone who

lived a sinless life. And Jesus is the only one who's

done that. He's lived a sinless life for

you. He's died a sinless substitute

sacrifice for you. So #3 Most marvelous of all,

Jesus could defeat death for you, the final enemy.

The ultimate result of sin in this world is death and decay

and destruction. It is both the separation from

God forever and all the curse it brings in this life.

And Jesus defeated it when he walked out of the grave alive.

Why? All so that you could realize

the love of God for you and respond to that love by calling

on Jesus to save you. Have you called on Jesus,

responded to the love of God to save you?

If you've not, right now is the moment to do so, like literally

right now in your heart of hearts to say, Jesus, thank you

for loving me. I want to love you.

Would you forgive me of my sin? Make me your own.

I'm giving my life you. I'm surrendering my life.

You call out to him now this is the response, the right response

to the love of God. This is the message.

And out of that message, John says we've heard from the

beginning, is the result or the application he's bringing out in

here that we should love one another Because guess what, if

God first loved us, then what does he call us to do as a

result? Love one another.

He says, now that you've received my love, what you've

heard from the beginning is we ought to love one another.

This here is the call, the one word that captures this word

love that captures both who we are and what God calls us to do.

I want you to think about how clear just one word is in the

Christian life. Loved is our identity in Christ.

Like there's no word that describes you better.

If you're a Christian then loved, loved by God and then

there's no one word that captures your job description as

a Christian, then to and the love.

This is both your identity and it is your job description.

The one word friend of the Christian life is love.

When we talk about the Christian life we often use the word good.

When the Bible talks about the Christian life it uses the word

love and there's a big difference.

Now in order for us to see what this looks like in our lives,

John paints 2 pictures for us here in the text. 1 is the

picture of Cain. The second is the picture of

Christ. Cain obviously is the negative

picture of what love doesn't look like.

Christ is going to be the positive picture of what love

does look like. And John begins with the

negative picture of Cain, the one we should not be like.

Notice here it says he was of the evil one.

Now let me just stop right there and say that's a fascinating

statement, is it not? Cain was of the evil 1.

We need to be clear and understand that every human

being can only belong to one of two masters in this life.

You belong to one of two masters right now.

You either belong to Jesus Christ or you belong to Satan.

Kyle did not say that. The Bible says that there's only

two masters because if you're not in the family of God, you

are outside the family of God and in, in the side in the

Kingdom of darkness, belonging to and in bondage to the enemy

of Christ himself, the devil he is now Cain is of the evil 1.

He does not belong to, to, to God's family.

He's of the evil. 1 Here. This is the only two masters we

can belong to in this life. And here the way to think about

this is sometimes we tend to think of people as good people

or bad people when there's only God's people and not God's

people. Now, you remember Cain.

He was the oldest of Adam and Eve's two sons, Cain and Abel.

This is one of the earliest stories in your Bible.

Cain and Abel both offered a sacrifice to God.

Why? Because of sin.

And so the sacrificial system was even there from the very

beginning after sin entered the world.

And ultimately, Jesus would be the ultimate fulfillment of that

sacrificial system with no one needed after Jesus.

Praise God. Cain and Abel both offered a

sacrifice to God. Abel offered a sacrifice in a

manner that pleased God. But Cain did not offer a

sacrifice in a manner that pleased God.

And as a result of his disobedience and not doing it

the way God called him to do it, Cain reacted with hatred towards

Abel and murdered him. Murdered his brother.

Why? Because Abel's righteousness

exposed Cain's wickedness. Mark it down.

Righteousness makes evil unmistakable.

Light makes darkness obvious. Love for God makes lack of love

for God undeniable. So evil, you know, this doesn't

like to be revealed for what it is, does it?

Unrighteousness does not like to be exposed by righteousness,

right? Therefore, the Bible tells us

point blank here that those who belong to the evil 1 and there's

only two masters to belong to, God or the enemy, those who

belong to the evil one naturally hate those who belong to the

Holy One. This is why John says do not be

surprised brothers, that the world hates you.

In other words, John says if you go and live a life of love and

it shines light in the darkness and righteousness reigns in your

life, and you shine that in an unrighteous world, in a Dark

World, guess what? Don't be surprised if you're not

loved back. We've seen an instance of that

in the last couple weeks, as heinous and as obvious as

possible. I want to share with you today

something that may be a little closer to home because the

couple you're about to hear from is one of our own members of

Cartersville First Baptist, who experienced this exact thing of

First John 313, Doctor Lynn and Carla De Dasi.

I want you to hear their testimony for a few minutes.

Hello CFTC family, we are the DDEC's and we're here to share

with you today our experience based off of first John 3 verse

1 John 3:13

13 where the Bible says that the world is going to hate you

because of your Christian beliefs and our story really

starts in 2012. In 2012, when I was

homeschooling my daughters, God called me to write conservative

Christian children's books. I was writing books that taught

my children that we were to defend the unborn as followers

of Jesus Christ. The Lord gave me a more public

platform when I was asked and given time on a Fox affiliate

radio show in the Philadelphia area.

This God morphed into a national platform where I was picked up

in Pennsylvania and drove into New York City to be on Fox and

Friends regularly for quite a few years.

I was speaking about protecting the unborn.

I was speaking about biblical marriage and why it was so

important to our communities and our culture.

And I was also in 2016 beginning to speak about being pro gender,

meaning XX and XY chromosomes. That's how God created us, male

and female. So this God gave us a platform

to speak biblical truth. I was getting heat mail from

2012 until 2020, but then in 2020, my husband who was a

surgeon, very well known in our community and in the state of

Pennsylvania, one of the busiest in our area, he was persecuted

for our Christian beliefs. Yes, we, I went to work on June

1st, 2020 and there was a firestorm awaiting me.

There was a lot of hate that was porn into the office about me

calling all kinds of names because of our biblical views.

And within five days I was suspended and six weeks later I

was terminated from my job. Really struggled to find a job

and work and I, we really had like no income for three years.

Plus we had an incredible amount of legal fees.

Just trying to defend ourselves to get out of this problem.

And worst of all, they even attacked my medical license to

try and strip that away from me so that I can never work as a

surgeon again. So there was a tremendous amount

of downfall to all this. And, and this was a prime

example of how the world is going to hate us because of our

Christian views. We were strong defenders of the

faith. We were strong defenders of

Christianity and we truly believed in the the biblical

mandate and trying to raise disciples for Christ.

So how were we persecuted? In a nutshell, We had our

livelihood stolen from us. We had our reputation stolen

from us. We had safety stolen from us.

The devil wanted our marriage. He wanted our children.

He wanted our grandchildren. I remember sitting around our

kitchen table in Pennsylvania and just praying against, just

praying against the enemy that he would not have our marriage,

he would not have our children or our grandchildren, that we

would stand firm in the faith. Jesus does promise you that

there would. There will be persecution and

you will be hated by the world if you stand up and proclaim the

name of Jesus. We are so thankful that God

brought us to a state where He is able to practice what He

loves and what He studied to do for 12 years before He went into

private practice. You can pray for me that God

returns to me a voice that has been silenced for the last five

years and that if He doesn't return my voice to me, that I

will be very content and happy and find the joy of the Lord and

just being a voice for truth in my local church and with my

family. I would just like to end with

this. Matthew 7 I is one of the

scariest verses in the Bible and it's the the verses where God

is, you know, that Jesus is presenting people as an example

of who is not getting into heaven.

And these are people that look very much like me and you.

They walk the walk, they talk to talk.

But yet there was something about their faith, something

about their Christianity that Jesus said to them, you know,

get away from me. I never knew you.

Don't be that person. Stand up for Jesus.

Let your voice be heard. Love God, love Jesus, and we

pray for you as a church that you will stand up for Christian

principles and the Word of God. Amen.

Bible says don't be surprised. Don't be surprised.

You know, I think one of the things that God is doing right

now in our times is getting our attention and saying it's time

to stand and be bold. There's a lot of a lot of

Christians. I think the church in general.

I even think about my own life and think about am I, am I been

standing clearly and flat footedly, unashamedly?

Have I lived under the radar in any way or have I been putting

the truth out there, standing for it?

You know you probably can avoid what they experienced if you

just let your convictions remain anonymous may be just with you.

But the moment you go public with your faith in your

neighborhood and your job in the classroom and on the team as

Jesus calls you to do, he simply says don't be surprised if they

don't love you back. But the Bible also prepares us

for that moment. First Peter chapter 4 says it

1 Peter 4 · chapter mention

like this verse 14. If you're insulted for the name

of Christ, you are blessed. There is a blessing for standing

even when it costs you. It says, if the because you're

blessed, the spirit of glory and of God rest upon you.

But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, or an

evildoer, as a meddler. Yet if anyone suffers as a

Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God

in that name. There is glory to God for him to

be, for him to be lifted up and exalted, and blessings for you

to have when you stand boldly for your faith no matter what

comes. And this is what God calls his

people to. Don't be surprised.

The one word for the Christian life is love, because we're

called to love. Number 2 is this.

The one word for the Christian life is love, because we are

identified. We're identified by love here,

John says. One of the ways, y'all, that we

can know we've been saved. Talk about assurance of

salvation. Not the only way, but one of the

ways John says we can know we've been saved.

That is that we've passed from death to life.

That's a description of salvation.

When you get saved, you go from the camp of the enemy dead,

separated from God to the family of God, made alive, born again,

joined with him, made, made, made, made one with with God

through Christ. So there's again, there's only

two masters to belong to. If you've passed from death to

life, you've been saved. That word for past there in the

New Testament in the Greek word is this idea of a a migration of

like an ancient people moving from one location to another

permanent location, never to return.

It says here this is how you know you've made that spiritual

trip, if you will. How do you know that you've made

that migration? John says one way we can know

we've been saved, we've been converted.

He says if we what love the brothers and what he means by

that is if we love our brothers and sisters in Christ, if we

love those who've made the trip as well, if we love the family

of God. I want to remind you of

something that we forget as we live this earthly life.

Then that is that your greatest, your deepest, your biggest bond

with people in this life. It's not by physical blood.

It's not by marriage. The greatest, longest lasting,

deepest bond that you as an individual human being can have

is with the family of God, with your brothers and sisters in

Christ. The question is, do you love the

family of God? John says.

By your love for the family of God, you can know one of the

ways you can know if you've truly been saved.

Now I was just having a conversation with somebody

yesterday, met with a young man. The young man actually got saved

last night. We had dinner.

I got to share the gospel with him.

He walked the aisle during the invitation and 1st service

because last night he gave his heart and life to Jesus Christ.

20 years old. And I was telling me about his

family. And as we talked about it, one

of the things I challenged him on is simply this.

He talked about how just in general, some of the people that

he knows claim to love God, but they don't, they don't go to

church. This is a, this is a pretty

common scenario, right? The Bible says you can't do

that. The Bible says you can't love

God and not love the family of God.

Does that make sense? One of the ways you can know you

truly are saved, one of the ways you can know you really love God

is if there's a love for you, for the family God.

There's no love for the family of God.

The Bible would have you question seriously whether you

truly love God. In fact, it just, it basically

says it's not possible. Just it's one of the ways we

know we've made the trip from death to life from outside of

Christ to in Christ is if we love the family of God.

That doesn't mean you like everybody that comes to church

with you. I didn't say that.

All right, don't be confused, but love and like are two

different things. Amen.

Do you love your brothers and sisters in Christ?

He says verse into verse 14. Whoever does not love abides in

death. In verse 15.

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and you know that

no murder has eternal life in him.

John says if love if the actions and lifestyle of love is not

somewhat typical, normal or common in your life, he's not

saying you got to be perfect. Nobody's going to be perfect

until we see Jesus. But if these actions aren't

normal in your life, he's saying you probably lived at 101

spiritual dead end Dr. That's your location spiritually

speaking. John here says there's no such

thing as a Christian who does not love verse 15 look back at

it. Everyone who hates his brother

is a murderer. It verse 15 makes it sound like

hatred is always as extreme as murder, all right, but that's

not always the case, all right. What John wants to wants us to

see here is that any action that is not love is actually hate.

Again, you either belong to God or you belong to the enemy.

And every action you take and thought towards other people is

either in the category of love or the category of hate.

John's saying there is no in between.

And yes, hate can ultimately lead to murder, but it doesn't

have to. Failure to love is hate, John is

saying, if it's not acting towards the good of another at

your own expense or what could be your own expense, John is

saying that's less than love. And that falls in the category

of hate. So you can think about it like

this. Hate could be as mild as I don't

care or as intense as murder. Let me try to see if I can make

it even more clear. Of course, hatred ultimately can

lead to murder, but you don't have to murder in order to hate.

You don't have to murder in order to act at the expense of

others for yourself. You see, let me put it like

this. The same stuff that leads to

murder is the same stuff that makes you want to be first in

line when food is served. It's the same stuff.

Different degree of expression, but it's the same stuff.

The same stuff that leads to murder is the same stuff that

makes you want to reveal a confidence someone has entrusted

to you. The same stuff that leads to

murder is the same stuff that makes you want to highlight your

success at work and downplay your coworkers.

It's the same stuff. The same stuff John says that

makes you hesitant to share your stuff with others and be

generous. It's the same stuff that leads

to murder. The same stuff that leads to

murder is the same stuff that makes you not want to forgive

someone who sinned against you. It's all refusing to act for the

good of someone else at your own expense.

It's all the same stuff. And John is saying any act

towards someone else is either in the category of love or hate.

There is no Gray that John gives us.

The person who lives this way that doesn't love, John says,

doesn't have eternal life. John is making things extremely

clear. You're either a child of God or

a child of the devil. You're either spiritually alive

or you're spiritually dead. Your actions are either actions

of love or actions of hate. The one word for the Christian

life is love because we're called to love friends and we're

identified by our love. 3rd and finally, the one word for the

Christian life is love because Jesus showed us how to love.

Jesus showed us how to love. This is verses 16 through 18.

By this John says we know love, that he laid down his life for

us. He is not Cain, he is Christ.

He did the exact opposite of Cain.

Think about it like this. Cain sacrificed someone else's

life to benefit his own. Jesus sacrificed his life for

the benefit of others. Cain acted for his own

self-interest at the expense of another.

Jesus acted at his own expense for the good of others.

Do you see the difference? Cain acted in selfishness.

Christ acted in selflessness. Cain acted in hate.

Christ acted in love. Do you see the difference in the

two pictures? Love is simply acting for the

good of others, even at your own expense.

That's love. Love is not a feeling.

Love is not a warm fuzzy. Love is not a like.

Love is an action. Love is a sacrifice.

Love is a choice. And this kind of love, let me

remind you, is not dependent on it being reciprocated back to

you. So this means this kind of love

you as a Christian do to people who are unlovely to you, you're

to act this way. And this kind of love to people

who are difficult towards you, who don't love you back, who are

selfish towards you, who are mean, angry, harsh, or whatever

you want to name it. This love loves.

Anyway, to the degree that an extent Jesus loved us, we ought

to love one another. And Jesus loved us big, did he

not? Laying down his what?

His life. So therefore, even to the extent

that Jesus loved us, we're called to love big in the same

extent, the same way as Christ has loved us.

But here's a real practical daily application question John

knows and anticipates we're going to ask it.

How often do we really get the chance to love in the big way

Jesus loved us by laying down our life ultimately for someone

else. How often do you get that

chance? I don't know that I've ever had

that chance to die for someone like literally give my life.

Now some people have, but that that's probably not going to

come along most days in your life.

So John's question then, yes, Jesus calls you to love big, But

John says Jesus also calls you if you claim to know Jesus to

love small. In fact, listen to verse 17

again. He says this, but if anyone has

the world's goods and sees his brother in need and yet closes

his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?

John says this. Hey, you claim to be a follower

of Christ. You claim to have received the

love of God, you claim to love God, and you claim to be willing

to lay down your life in love for someone else.

But Hey, Monday morning comes and in class you have two

pencils and your friend has none.

Or you're going on your way to work and you see your Co worker

over there with a, you know, Jack in his hand and a flat tire

and you have 4 full tires and he's got 3.

All right, you've got groceries but your neighbor doesn't.

Or you're well and can take care of yourself but your neighbor

can't. But I could go on and on.

You see someone that doesn't have what they need to live in

the daily basic necessities of life that you have, and if your

choice is in that moment to close off the valves of

compassion in your heart and look the other way and do

nothing. John's question for you is, if

you don't love small, how do you have love at all?

How does the love of God abide in Him?

The question, ladies and gentlemen, is rhetorical.

That means it doesn't need an answer because it's obvious,

John says If you refuse to love small, you probably don't have

love at all. How does the love of God abide

in that person? We're called to love big, but

the opportunities on a daily basis that come along, friends

are often going to look much smaller.

A word of encouragement to someone who's discouraged.

A prayer for someone who's bearing a burden.

Something that someone is missing that you know you could

supply. Meeting a basic need.

Going out of your way to make life easier for someone else.

The simple things in life, the small things, it's where the

love of Christ is most often going to be shown in our life.

You see, just like hate, love doesn't have to be extreme to be

loved as hate doesn't have to be extreme to be hate.

And every action we're doing is either for the good of others at

our own expense or for our good at the expense of others.

And by the way, the New Testament is slammed full of

specific ways we're called to love one another.

I just want to give you these ideas again, because if if

you've never read your New Testament and just look for the

one another's the instructions for how we're to relate to one

another, they're all expressions of ordinary ways we're to love.

Let me give you a few. Romans 1210.

Be devoted to one another. Give preference to one another.

Romans 15-7 accept one another. Galatians 513 through love serve

one another. Galatians 62 bear one another's

burdens. Ephesians 4 two show tolerance

of one another. Ephesians 425 speak truth, each

of you with his neighbor. Ephesians 432 be kind to one

another, tender hearted, forgiving each other.

First Thessalonians 511 encourage one another.

And I could go on, right? There's about 35 of these basic

ordinary daily one another's that we're to live out towards

one another in the family of God, right?

John says, by the way, you can know you've passed out of death

to life. If this is characterizing your

life, that's you love the family of God and your neighbor.

You ought to be a Christian is to follow Christ and what did

Christ do? He laid down his life for us and

these are the basic, daily, ordinary ways we lay down our

lives for one another. Love is a primary evidence of

your salvation, that you've truly been made alive.

Verse 18 says this, little children, let us not love in

Word or deed, rather in Word or talk, but in deed and in truth.

Let us not love in Word or talk, but indeed and in truth.

I read about a man and he said out loud to his girlfriend,

Sweetie, I would climb the highest mountain for you.

Real original, I know. I would swim the deepest ocean

for you. I'd fight a jungle full of lions

for you. And if it doesn't rain, I'll be

over to see you tonight. First service.

Didn't get it that quickly. But love is not a feeling.

Love is not a claim. Love is an action.

And if it's not an action, it's not real.

It's not in truth, it's not in reality.

Love is an action, and when you do it, it's probably not going

to feel good. If it costs you.

If you wait when you feel good to love, you won't love if when

you do it and you do it to someone that might not love you

back, when you do it to someone who doesn't belong to Christ,

especially potentially, But this is how the world's going to know

that we truly belong to who? Jesus, he says in John 1335.

If we have not that we're good to each other, not that we're

good people, not that we're good citizens.

All those things are wonderful, but there's a difference between

good and love. You can go, you can go home and

shut yourself in your house and be good people, but you want to

love the world that way. Moment you start thinking about

love, you got to start thinking about who's around you.

The one word for the Christian life is love.

I just want to ask you and challenge you with this

question, what one word best describes your life?

If it was all over and all said and done today and everybody had

one word for you, one word, what word would it be?

He was a good man, she was a good woman.

They were great. Would the word love be in there

at all? Maybe.

Maybe there's certain areas of your life that love might be

true, but others that are not that you need to surrender to

Jesus. Maybe Love's really not in there

at all because you've never received by faith Jesus Christ,

the one who laid down his life and love for you.

And today, now is the time to receive the love of God, calling

on him to receive forgiveness of sin and salvation so you can be

experiencing the love of God, so you can show you can't give what

you've never received. And this kind of love is not

natural. You're not going to muster it

up. You're not going to decide one

day, Oh my goodness, I'm just going to change my heart and

start loving. Only Jesus can do that.

That's why John says you can know you've passed from death to

life if this is happening because this is not of you.

This is supernatural. This is from heaven.

This is from Jesus. Maybe you need to receive

Christ. Maybe maybe when we sing and

respond in this next song, you just want to come and kneel at

this altar and say King Jesus. I'm not sure what my word, one

word would be, but I'm not sure it's love.

And I want to ask you to make whatever adjustment in my life

you need to make from my life to be aligned with what you say

should be true of me because it's true of you and I want it

to be true of me. Maybe some things you need to

let go of. Maybe there's some things you

need to trust Him for. Maybe there's some things you

need to ask Him to change in order for love to be Your one

word. Heavenly Father, I want to ask

right now that as we respond to You, as we've been instructed

from Your word on how we should live towards one another,

Father, that love truly would be the description of our lives.

I pray Lord, that the world would see something so different

and so supernatural in US. They know they can't explain it

outside of Jesus Christ. God, I pray that you, we as your

church, would be raised up. That we would stand up, that we

would love, that we would share, that we would show and shine no

matter what, even if the world hates in return.

That we would consider ourselves blessed knowing that Father,

this is how you plan to use us, even if we're not loved back as

you were not loved back, but put on the cross.

Lord Jesus, help us to take up our cross to love as you loved

so the world can see there's a God who loves them so that we

can be difference makers for all of eternity.

God, if someone needs to receive your love today for the first

time, would they be bold enough to step out from where they are

and come tell me and let them go from death to life today?

In Jesus name I pray, Amen. Would you stand with me, church

family?