The Love That Transport | Dr Daniel Kong

You're listening to a message to go from acts church. We hope this message

will light up your day today. I've got a message on I got seven

to seven right, No, not kidding, Anny, it is a message

on lorve. Okay, I have the title of my message today is the

Love that Transforms. Okay, Now, before you all go lovely, dervy

and all that, let me just quickly jump straughto scripture so that to anchor

you down. We're gonna go to Matthew twenty two, verses thirty four to

forty, so that we anchor it way down and we don't go to wayward.

All right? Cool? Afterwards a church service, let us read from

Scripture the Greatest Commandment. Okay, there's a title, hiter, I'm reading

for a new International version Transition NIV. In short in verse thirty four,

say it's hearing that Jesus has had silenced the said disease, and the pharisees

got to get So these are two parties different ones day, they come together.

They are not really friends, but they come. They came together in

this context. Okay, one of them an expert in law. Third person

the third party, uh tested him with this question teacher, which is the

greatest commandment in the law. Now, just in case you do not know

what law we're talking about, we're talking about the law in the Old Testament

times. So this particular teacher is an expert in Old Testament law. Okay,

And it is a very fantastic question if you think about it. Essentially,

what this person or this let's just call him the lawyer for now,

is actually asking what is this whole stuff supposed to mean? Can you have

a shorter version or the thing that is most important in all the commandments?

Okay? Just in case you're not aware, we're not talking just the ten

commandments. It's more than ten commandments. Will elaborate a little bit later on.

Okay, So what is the greatest of them all? And I know

that's a lot of it, but what is the greatest of them all?

This is one of those t was a TLDR version, and he's asking,

what's the short version of it? I need learn this TLDR thing. Not

too long ago anyway, shows by age thirty seven, Jesus replied, love

the God, your God, with all your heart, and with all your

soul, and with all your mind. Okay, all your heart all your

soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.

Okay, So essentially, Jesus, if you look at your Bible, right,

this will be all in rit letters. If you have those red letter

Bibles. That means it's actually him talking love. Okay, he it's actually

saying the core faith or core Christianity is really spoils down or sums down to

this one thing. All right, just love God, or love your God,

or love your Lord to be more specifically, with all your heart,

your soul, all your soul, and all your mind, the first and

the greatest commandment. Okay, then he true in the bonus after that in

verse thirty nine. And what this is is that the second of it is

to love your neighbor as yourself. Okay, so not just love your neighbor

as yourself. Most of us we usually look at it, you like,

live your neighbor if you stop there, because this is a part of the

ten commandments, right, but she is love your neighbor as yourself. Forty

All the law and the prophets hang on to these two commandments every okay,

so far. So in other words, if you were to look at this,

how do you treat your neighbor, it's reflective of how you treat yourself.

To sit an extent, this makes sense, right, because you're supposed

to love your neighbor as yourself. Okay, another way to think about it,

the way you love your neighbor is also the same way as you're gonna

love yourself to some extent. If this is all mathematical engineer story, so

I'm like, there one one plus two equals twelve. No, no kidding,

but but you get the idea. There's this correlation, okay, between

the two. So if someone comes up to you and say I love you,

right, the earthly kind of love, maybe the question is should also

be before you can say I love you, or you can ask the question

the question back to the person do you love yourself first? Because if the

person is coming to you as your neighbor to say I love you, you

have to quickly check first do you love yourself first before you come and love

me your neighbor? Correct a right? Powerful, right? Yeah, So

that is essentially what this means. And we're gonna go a bit deeper because

again this Jesus words are so I think we need to dive into it now

as all of you know, you know, when we grow up in life,

we go through different lessons in life. Right, you go to school,

kindergarten, they teaches certain things, all right, they shot to love

this, you had to play nice, teach your lo things. They teach

you basic stuff in school, like you know, calculating, how to calculate,

how to signs, you know, those kinds of things. But nobody

really tackles the area of love. But it's so important. It's the second

most important commandment. So I'm floating around because it's so small crowd like fron

and and and but why don't they teach it? It's so important? Why

don't they teach it? Right? Have you ever thought about that? And

you must understand that in a culture today, a lot of things can be

resolved if we love each other a bit more. But first you have to

love yourself every Okay, so far, okay, Now let's pray otherwise?

Can so? Father? I pray Lord that you help us, uh,

you know, learn about your live. You know for us as we sung

earlier, as we've also taken community that we know we understand the power of

your love. So help us understand Lord? Uh, you know how you

first loved us and how that love can then translate to how we can love

our neighbors. So far play pray for a clarity, Father of our mind,

and also Father, for you to speak so clearly through our you know,

into our hearts as well in jesusiting me, pray amen Amen. Now

I grew up, I think, and many times I share you, guys.

I grew up in a very strict kind of upbringing. My dad also

no nonsense guy. First thing, anything goes wrong, the sugarcane, whatever

kin will come out. La. You'll just wag first. Ask questions later,

okay, uh. And sometimes I try to reflect and why why is

it like that? And then I understand, or just to give a bit

of background, my my grandfather doesn't talk much. Food childe food child guy

doesn't talk much, and he comes he's a hit master of a Chinese school.

That already explains why he has quote unquote no capacity to love his son,

and therefore it translates to this grandson. Okay. And so I always

thought, right, loving is some thing that you learn and learned behavior.

So as I was growing up, or rather as I prepare for parenthood,

I was so afraid that this. Uh, let's just use the word loose

lea. This curse will pass on to my kids. So I was very

fearful. I was very fearful because I never knew how to love, because

I never received love as not in that in that sense, la uh and

Es comes from a very different background. Her family is all hackey kind.

I never received any hell, I'm never only time I received a heart right

was when I went to Australia for the very first time. My dad this

and that was it send me off. I think if I wasn't going for

so long, right, he wouldn't even do that. But anyway, back

to point, how in the world can we give love if we do not

receive love first? Right? And how so? How the question is how

do we receive love? Right? But maybe the more important question is sometimes

us we feel that even if you receive love, there is a barrier of

how we can give love because it also may be our own experience of what

love is. Correct. So the more important question is that how do you

actually give love after dot dot dot? Okay, mean to say, how

can you love after you've been hurt before? Or how can you love if

there is some abandonment or some abuse in some upbringing. Maybe, Okay,

how can you love if you've been betrayed? And sometimes you know, the

smallest things can really break friendships apart? Right, how can you love again?

How can you manage to how? How how can you love somebody if

they just goes to you for no good reason? Right? Sometimes we have

those you know, say so't happened to kids actually adults, So sometimes go

to this family field, et cetera. How do you love when you're disappointed?

Over and over and over and over again. Okay, So what I've

done is we really have to focus on the perspective of how we can love

after dot dot dot Okay, e break is so far Okay, So sometimes

our perspective of what love is is sort of tarnished because of, like I

said, the experiences that we had before. It can be jaded and it

can be very far from reality. I use the example very again. I

love my dad to bits by the way I always till this day just thinks

I'm a bit uh loose up here, because she thinks because I always thought

that I needed that kind of love, that tough love I did, I

needed to be corrected whacked like crazy just to be who I am. I

have no issues with that, by the way. Uh and just thinks it's

very weird because, like I said, she comes from a very different kind

of a lovely de v family. So but you know, it could also

go very wrong, right some in some cases you've seen where cases that the

perspective is very jaded and then for the person, perspective of love is totally

out of wagon already. And therefore, like I said, the fear that

I had and I sheard earlier was can I love some or love my kids?

Because my dad never gave me that? Okay, And how do you

do that? How how do you create an environment when there's no reference?

How do you do that when nobody the closest ones to me, if you's

family has never shown me that before as well? Okay. So the reason

why I started with this is because sometimes when we when we were Chinese are

we're only like, you know, this bad behavior that we see it.

It's probably because of the upbringing, right, very normal, right only me

we think it like least right, and but you never actually think what is

the reason for something like that to happen? There must be a story behind

the behavior, maybe there was some brokenness. You know, maybe it's worthwhile

giving the benefit of doubt because as I just mentioned, what if there's some

hurts before. Again, it doesn't justify the behavior right or how the person

reacts, but it could be a reason why the person or the individual or

the collective group behave the way they behave. Maybe because there's some stuff that

has been that's happened, maybe some le's issues the word drama in their life,

Okay, some big season that explains why you know, the person is

going through the situation. You know, these days, mental health is a

very big issue, very big or other thing because of awareness. Uh.

In fact, you know, I I I work in a education sector which

deals with a lot of cases where there are real situations where uh, there

are mental mental related issues that if it's not addressed, has also led to

things like taking one's life, et cetera. Okay, so it's a very

real thing. And I think today in the world they live today, we

are more open, we are more aware of this. Last time, you

know, our parents generation is probably like, yeah, this guy soft like

tofu they're just tough en up, right, But actually it's a real thing.

It is a real thing. But I think sometimes we over over use

this whole thing, like, oh, you know, the drama in their

life, what do they understand? Drama is reading a bit I can't get

a grab and then or drama. I mean, I'm kind of using that

as an extreme. It's not always the case, but one trying to come

back here is that just give the opportunity or the benefit of doubt to that

person who is actually maybe perhaps have gone through some hurts in their lives and

maybe because of that they see love in a very skewed perspective. Okay,

And the reason why we're covering this is because you know, we're in a

season where we talk about getting people to understand what is God's love, and

you must understand sometimes their perspective of not accepting God's love is because of maybe

like a better way, the baggages that they come from or they have had,

and therefore they'd be like, huh so simpler, God really love us

in that context you So, So this is where I'm coming from, the

anger that I'm coming from every gay so far am I telling you the vias?

Okay, I'm slowing downaday because the caffeine is sort of wearing out a

little bit. Okay, So how so the question is how do you then

model love? And how you model love if let's say it's absent father or

I used to have a senior pastor who never had a dad. Basically he's

adopted. But I see how he loved his son so well that his son

became, you know, a great guy in ministry, et cetera. I

always wonder how did he became? Who is how they model after? He

always said that he has no father to you might know him, Kevin Connor.

Yeah, in Australia anyway, where was I? Yeah? So he

said his words were always he modeled after God, the Father. And I

thought, why not go back to the og? Right I've diliked over here?

Go back or return to the ogie of love? Because our father,

Father, God is the author of love. So we are to say,

go back to God. Would you heal this broken part in me so that

I can accept love and then eventually go out and love my neighbors? Because

if I cannot accept that, how else can I then love others? I

got subscriptures over there. Okay, you can see that this is all points

to you know, our you know the ogie of love, right, It

says here, let us love one another, for love comes from God.

So the best reference for love is God. Everyone who loves has been born

of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God.

Because God is love. I think a lot of us have seen the scripture

reform, but just to remind us and reiterate again, we are also to

rely on the love God has for us because God is love. Whoever lives

in love lives in God and God in them. And that's why if you

trace back to the first most important commandment, is love God first, because

this is how you can then come to the second most important commandment. Okay,

and of course we John three sixteen. I think everybody knows this.

He loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son. Okay,

So the most important component of love, as I mentioned earlier, it's

not just love a whole, because God is already perfect, has perfect love

in a sense. So actually your side is the one that is maybe has

some work in progress or has some work to be done. Okay, So

how you perceive love and how you lack a better accept love is probably the

thing that needs to be worked on. More So, the I love you

or do you love yourself? Involves you. You are the star of the

show. Okay, so I put in this slide you are the most important.

You're sorry, You're most important in this context of having a loving relationship

with God and having a relationship with your neighbors, because if you're not in

the picture, you you're almost like the bridge between the two. Essentially.

Okay, so relationships cannot happen without you in the mix. Severalkys so far

so more important than interpersonal relationship, interpersonalits between person to person, The intra

personal relationship is more important. That means, how do you love yourself?

Or you look at this things? Am I? The look at the mirror?

See what the handsel? Kind of like? Do I love yourself?

No? No, no, not that kind of love? But how do

you identify? How do you see yourself? You know that's more important.

Are you seeing yourself as a child of God or you're just looking at other?

Not so for the aspects. Okay, the selflessness is what we're talking

about, not the selfishness. Not oh look a handsome today, that kind

of thing? No, no, no, nothing like that. Okay,

So in simple terms, it is how you see yourself and how I see

myself, and then that would establish how we can take that relationship with our

neighbors to the next level. Makes sense not? Or is it too too

deep for a mid Sunday thing, mid mid long weekend thing. Again?

Anyway, let's move on, because if you don't like you, or you

don't love you, then it's actually very difficult for you to be effectively living

somebody else. I mean we do myself and just sometimes we do. Actually,

we still do quite a lot of counseling for people or other couples that

are getting together in marriage, and most of the time you will say or

remind the couples that you need to be secure, you need to be whole

before you go and find somebody. Right, It's not half plus half equals

one, it's one plus one. It goes to and you come together.

So you need to see yourself as beautiful. You need to see yourself as

complete before you can go and love others. If you don't grace for yourself,

how can you apply grace to somebody else? Right? If you do

not love yourself, it's impossible to love somebody else because it's it's that,

like I said, it's the warp perspective of love. Okay. So a

healthy relationship is not just a healthy ship between two people, is a relationship

between you and yourself, and then you and God of course, and then

you and your you and the you and the neighbor. All right, So

there's a three way trying go somewhat somewhat Okay, So let's let's let's talk

about this. How then can we be complete? How or feel complete before

we can go on and bless o this? Okay? One of the biggest

if you are in a relationship, or if you're preparing to get married,

or even if you're already married. Uh, and you have this bubble,

they need to be burst out quickly, DEBUNKI straight away. You need nobody's

gonna come and save the relationship if you do not love yourself first, right,

You need to see yourself as whole in God, in God before you

can even love somebody, Okay, before you can fulfill somebody else's dream,

your partner, you need to fulfill your own dream in the sensor and not

in the selfie sense, okay, just to make sure you find yourself first.

Okay. So sometimes you know, in our very cheer kind of Chinese

kind of way, we always tell people quickly, go get married, go

find a live partner. Actually that's not the most important thing. The most

important thing is to say, please find yourself first, make sure your whole

before you go and find somebody, Otherwise you'll be damaging somebody else to the

next tent. Does it make sense, Yeah, find yourself first before you

go out and find a live partner. So really, instead of saying finding

a partner, you need to be whole like hold h o w h oli,

be whole before or be complete or be secure in your identity in Christ

and in yourself before you go out and find love. Okay, and this

is supore experience. Actually need data one one anyway, My wife is many

more. Anyway, let's not, let's not. She's home. Sorry,

yeah, anyway, she's she's fine and well she's just having uh in self

quarantine at the moment, but she's alife and well, Okay, do you

love you? If you do not love you, how do you then love

others? Is the biggest question here. And let me just give you some

contexts. Okay, if you you know the scripture that we read earlier.

If you look at the two scriptures before. Let me just quickly go into

Matthew twenty two fifteen to twenty two. Okay, so the one that we

read earlier talks about the Pharisees and also the uh, the se Disees,

right, the Pharisees, if you read in twenty two over here, okay,

the Pharisees went out and laid plans to track his words. His words

is Jesus. They also got together with the different the Herodians. Okay.

Oh, by the way, you give you some contexts. All these people

right, don't really like each odawen okay. The Pharisees don't like the Herodians.

The Herodians also don't like the Seidizes. The said this is don't like

the one day you read the little is the law text in the law Okay,

So effectively, it's just to contextualize it. Sometimes, you know,

there's a bit of inter racial I'm not saying that's the case, but interracial

kind of fight. But somehow, when it's talking about you know, our

national narcilla Mark, I think everyone gets together and it is exactly the same

kind of context where because they find a common foe. They look, they

don't look at their own differences. They come together to attack or bring down

Jesus, and he's trying to trap Jesus in this context. Okay. So

Jesus is always even in that era and even to to the day, it's

still in this whole controversial or controversy kind of a state. People all like

the baby Jesus kind of thing or act and all that in the Manger the

Christmas story, but a lot of people then and even today do not like

the adult or grown up Jesus kind because he's very controversial, the way he

does things, the way he looks at the law. I think we talked

about, you know, how he brought in the whole perspective of mercy and

grace and love as well. People don't like that, okay, And this

is the where he is never he's actually a misfitler Jesus in a sense.

So everybody ganged up on him and they're trying to trap him. Okay,

So if you look at this, they I'm not gonna go to everything,

but the main thing is that they're trying to ask them who is who?

Who? Who should the Texas go to? And gay you know that story.

Then Jesus quickly said, this highlighted the main parts. You hypocrits.

Why try to trap me? Jesus saw, try straight away, and then

Jesus said this, okay, you need to give your taxes to whoever it

belongs to. In that time of the era, Caesar was the one that's

ruled the ruling government. So you pay a texas to to to Caesar.

Because they're trying to say whether this guy will say, oh, you know,

you pay a texes to somebody else, may be to the Lord,

right, but no, you respect the government. You pay your taxes to

the government, the ruling government of the time. So they were amazed.

They tried to gang out of him, but they didn't work well essentially.

Okay, the next bit, the next story, which is from twenty three

to thirty three. Okay, now this one talks about Uh some cuss stems

over there. Uh, this is a marriage as at the resurrection means say

marriage after death. Okay, when a family member or a husband dies,

what happens. Okay, So the said dicees. They did not firstly,

they did not believe in the resurrection, but they still went and say,

use the resurrection to trap Jesus. Okay, now what did they do?

So they're giving them a very big scenario. Okay, they're saying, okay,

Jesus, what will happen if let's say there's a there's seven brothers and

they're all married, okay or sorry, sorry, they're married. And let's

say the first brother is married to this wife, and if the first brother

died, you know, where does the wife. In the customs that the

wife would then be married to the to the second brother, et cetera,

etcetera, until the very end their wife the woman dies, and the woman

did die in the story. And then they're asking, so when they go

to heaven or resurrection or resurrected, who will the wife who's gone through all

the brothers, who will the wife be married to in heaven? So it's

a trap question law. So Jesus straight away corrected and said, okay,

there is no such thing as marriage in heaven. Marriage is the earthly thing.

You get married here, but when you go to heaven you are solo,

your individual. So all those things that you say, oh, I'll

see in heaven actually not as a mery couple. At least you might see

each other, but you see as angels, okay, not as merried couples.

But he straight away answered, and then they were again defeated, all

right, astonished with his teaching. Again this is all trying to trap Jesus.

And then the third one, which is the main one that we talked

about, the greatest commandment, the third challenger in the mix, which is

the Old Testament law expert expertise came out and asked him this, okay,

because you must understand in that time, right, they are very good at

executing laws. Of course, they must be an expert in the law first,

and then they will then try to find a flaw or people who do

not follow the law, and then they will catch them out, and then

they will I guess is punishable by whatever repercussions that were set in their time.

Okay. And again, as I mentioned earlier, this is not just

the Ten commandments kind of law. There's actually recorded about six hundred over six

hundred old different commandments there are that the people of that time has to follow

if they are followers of the Israel, Israel, Israel, the god of

the time, the God of Israel. Okay, And out of this six

hundred half of it is what you can do or should do, and the

other half is what you shouldn't do. Okay, So imagine this, right

you walk out of the house, right, there are a whole list of

things that you cannot do and the holy thing you should do in the chair

sixty five days of your life, it's very easy for someone to catch you

out that you break some laws that you're not familiar with. So this is

the expert that is involved. So he's trying to ask Jesus, hey,

what is the biggest, most important law? And again, the reason why

he's asking that is trying to catch Jesus up is not to as just simplify

it by trying to say if he's just say this is more important, other

than he can try to catch him out on the other six hundred that is,

uh, maybe we have more relevant Okay, So that is the context,

okay. But what Jesus did is that he he straight away said that

the most important of it is the two that we just mentioned. Okay,

and that too is let me think of a side step for Jesus mentioned love

your God and then love your neighbor as yourself. If you if today right,

he didn't say that right. Today, we'll stay at the six hundred

over laws you know to to adhere to on a daily capacity. You think

about it. So I'm actually very thankful for Jesus to quote unquote simplify the

entire process. Okay, but even at the time, right, it is

amazing because once you dumb it down, used to word very loosely this I

used the word commandments or dummies. You dumb it down. It's just really

two things, love God and love others. Very simple, right, very

simple. And again I thank God for that because now our burdens really like

right, our yoke is really easy, right, and we have to keep

stressing because all you have to do, or all Jesus is saying, right,

if you focus all your attention to just this two things, focus on

loving God. Everything else a fall in the place, all six hundred of

it. Think about it. This is a blanket blanket law or blanket rule

or greatest law. If you follow this, you love your God, you

wouldn't do all those things. And again it's beyond the ten commandments, makes

sense, right, you love your God, you won't break that ten.

And beyond that ten, that's six hundred over commandments. Okay, so broken

down, it's really love God and love others. And if you look at

that, it says with all your heart, with all your mind, and

with all sorry, with all your soul and with all your mind. Now

he didn't say with your heart, your soul, and your mind. It's

all repetitive, right, all all all? Why the think that's the case,

because it's very crucial. And it's also because you and I know humans

right will always maybe give a bit of our soul, our mind, our

one version is our strength and what what I miss? Uh? And and

and your heart. So he just wanted to make sure that not only is

dumb it down, you want to make sure it's very specific as well.

It's with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.

Okay, So this is important and it's a game changer because back then even

till this day, if you talk to anybody who is outside our faith,

our religion, a lot of it is very let's just use the word performance

based religion mean to say, if you do something correctly, you do not

sin, you do not murder, you're not kill an ant, you do

this this is this is this you go to heaven or you you know,

it's generally like this. So when somebody tells you that you don't do anything,

God has already come, God has already given your life, or you

do just love God and you are okay, you guaranteed life. So it's

very mind boggling because we've moved from a rap performance based religion, which is

all about doing good things, adhering to laws, adhering to rules to something

or what about you by zero love, right, is they will do all

this the first two with no love at all. You do not need love

to do all those things. Like I said, fear is something that could

be used to achieve the first two KPIs so to speak. Okay, So

when Jesus introduced this whole thing about love your God, it's very mind boggling,

you know, even for the expert of that Old Testament law because before

that, no love is required. Cool. Right, So performance based religion

two, what I call very very butchering, is now Jesus based religion.

Now it only involves love. So again previous light, there are many many

words, many many criterias, and this again just to loosely uses a six

hundred over in here. You know, of course, if it's it's fit

all one slight right, probably be forever even ten or so. It's quite

long. Two one item right. This is the main differentiator between our religion

and our God. The reason why we need to understand this is because sometimes

when we approach different ones and we try to share the gospel, you must

understand where they're coming from. They come from a very performance base, and

it's it's it's that's why. Sometimes it's easy for all to know, and

yet it's difficult for all to know. So contradicting myself. Why because you

do stuff, you feel that sometimes when you do something, even for ourselves

God, I've already done this, you know, I've read my Bible,

I've highlighted my Bible. I have put pink sticky notes to you know every

day. You know, yesterday, islast week, I sat on the back

seat this way, I said, in the front seat. Because of this.

You know, maybe in the next race is coming out, performance is

coming out. I should I deserve that race, and they deserve the thing

because I've done all things right. Even for Christians, we sometimes our very

performance driven, even with our own God. What more, those that who

do not know Christ. Okay, so Jesus is pulling the is rock pulling,

you know, essentially to say that doesn't matter if you dress your best.

Of course, we say, if you love God, you might dress

your best on Sundays. Don't get me wrong, it's not because you dress

your best, and therefore you know you you you, you deserve attention from

God in the sense. Okay. So essentially we have moved from doing things

according to rules and laws without love to just love. Okay. So that's

very powerful, very powerful. That's the essence of a faith. Actually,

how you are to live well in Christ. It's just to love God,

love yourself, and love your neighbor. That's it. Everything else will fall

into place. Everything else falls based of course, I've expanded a little bit

more because it's what God says, right, So from that one love,

you expand it a little bit more. And as I mentioned to you,

it's all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind,

all of his strength as well. It's intentionally repeated. We've built in

redundancy, all right, to have all all all you know, obvious engineers

who like, yeah, we love redundancy, just to make sure that the

structure doesn't collapse. Et cetera, etcetera. All or because you know why

if you didn't put all for minor, they will say, oh, I

give you all my heart, I do it mine, I can give half

me, I empty my mind. Or you know, my soul. Soul

is a right crucial thing. You've partial soul, maybe ninety percent even,

but I still hold back. So this clear cut all everything. So your

purpose here on earth is really to be loving to God, to love your

neighbor as yourself, and that is your primary objective and your focus, utilizing

all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your

strength. Okay. And of course, and above all I mentioned earlier,

you need to love yourself. You need to be complete, You need to

be whole, You need to be you need to be sure of your identity.

Okay. And this is how we can then go and love your neighbors.

And also the order here is fairly important, okay, because if you

try to do love yourself first, or love your neighbor first before you love

God. Also not quite right, because the first moment is love God first.

If you do not love God first, how do you love yourself?

Correctly? So if we jump and straight, we say I'm a good guy.

I love everybody around me. I bake cookies every every day. I

give to all my literal neighbors. I'm loving them. But if you don't

love that love God, you don't have to essentially love properly as well.

Okay, So that's that's the That's the thing that I wanted to mention.

And one more thing about loving God is also about understanding why it says love

not your Lord, your God. Right. It is the whole thing about

putting perspective because he is sovereign. We spend an entire year talking about God

kingdom, kingdom, rules, right, having rules. Rather, he is

your, your Lord and your God. And the other key point here in

the English context at least, is your mean to say, it's not borrowed

your God. You just said love your God. Not Jesus Gonna said love

my father or love my God. It says not your I mean to say,

it cannot be borrow it cannot be all because my mama, my mom

loves God, and therefore I'm fine, I'll inherit that love. No,

it's your God. It's personal, guys, it's yourself. And this is

how you also need to teach this when you go out, because they need

to understand that it is Him that is sovereign, is Him the supreme.

But it is a personal relationship with your God. It's all upon you.

Okay, all right, So now let's talk about can go back one side.

Let's talk about heart, soul, mind, and strength. Okay.

That's why the heart is important because there's also a process, say God,

your heart, for out of it flows the issues of life. So you

need to ensure that your heart is right because the heart right starts sometimes it

gets emotional, you start to do funny things. And so if you give

your all, your heart to our God, the sovereign God, everything will

be fine. Now your soul is also important because essentially that's essentially who you

are, your essence. So you cannot give your soul to some of the

being and expect to to you know, to operate in love. Now,

the last thing I mentioned is the mind, and the mind here right,

If you look at scripture right next light Gate, the whole context of this

love the Lord, your God, and you see it's identical right Deuterarian first,

by the way, before Jesus came along. If you look at this

right, everything is exactly the same. The only thing that's different between Deuteronomy,

which is the Old Testament time and the New Testament when Jesus game is

that the strength is swat with mind. That's why my previously I put both

in there first, because I guess who I am, just to make sure

that it's covered. But this very intentionally swapt from strength, from all your

strength physical being to all your mind. Okay, now what is again we're

not herpersent, sure, but probably Jesus is trying to emphasize maybe between the

two ways more important, Okay, because the mind is more important than what

it is in the physical. This way, sometimes we say, right,

you walk out with a renewed mind, you tend to behave differently, just

like how we againess the simple thing. Let's say you you're very convicted about

something. Let's say I want to lose weight, et cetera. You know,

I go in do certain steps, but it has to happen here first,

in the mind first, before the others can follow. That's why it's

more important to have a renewed mind or or even ah to have all your

mind covered or given to the Lord, and not just the strength portion.

Okay, emphasis on the mind, because what you're thinking is how it would

translate to your relationship, how it would translate to how you love others,

and how you translates to how you love God even Okay, so I'll give

you an example. If you do not understand, let's say, how,

uh, maybe how how how humans are made in the image of God.

I mean I shared view before. When I was growing up, I was

hooked to pornography and I give all boys school, so I was I was,

I was watching it, and you objectify the things that you see on

screen. But if you have, if your mind understands the design that this

is made in the image of God, you would the whole physical side you

will not do it, you know, because you understand the context of how

it was designed. Okay, So this example, you will stop the objectification

because you understand because all your mind is given to the Lord, and therefore

you will love even that context a bit differently. Does that make sense?

So it's really up here more important than what is in the strength. And

so I think we sometimes need to pray this prayer that we need to have

a freedom in our mind, freedom and understand that all everything belongs to the

Lord. And that will fix the behavior in the physical, in our body,

in how we react and how we do and how we love others.

So it's really the change of the mind, and that would change the way

we behave with our bodies, and of course to follow suit the soul and

the rest of it. Okay, So very short message, very simple message,

because like I said, it's it's a it's a long weekend. I

was not going to take this much further. But hm, the the thing

that's most important is next line. You need to love God with your all

everything, not with folding back. Like I said, we it's intentionally repeated

with all this, with all that, with all the other, et cetera,

et cetera, with all, with all, with all, with all.

So even when you love God, you need to give it. You're

all not just a portion, a fragment, a segment. It is everything

fully and then by doing this, if your whole complete being, you can

then love others. Okay. And I mentioned earlier about loving yourself a little

a little bit, that loving yourself is also modeled after God's love for us.

Otherwise it will be a very because God's love for us. Right,

It's like something is very selfless. It's not selfish kind of love. Most

of them. When we say, right, we love ourselves, it's a

very selfish one say look good. You know that those muscular guys go to

the gym, et cetera. You know they love their own bodies. It's

a bit different. Now, this is really about the God's kind of love,

the agape loft that we're talking about. So we are to model that

kind of love as we love ourselves, see ourselves how God sees us.

And that's very important because sometimes you know, we'll probably know some friends.

Every time we meet up with some of these friends is always very negative.

Anyway, this sid of friends before every time you come into a room,

instead of the person lighting of the room, the whole place is like a

few not just dimmer because of sometimes you're like, yeah, the guy is

like that and he's wide that way. But you know it's because that's how

he sees himself. It's not how he's God. See how he sees himself

true the lenses of God. And this is exactly what I'm trying to say

here. We need to adopt this kind of understanding and again, this kind

of love. Right, it's not like I love my wife kind I love

the Korean boy band raining go for it. I know, I love BTS

or what's the worst they I don't want tailor sway or whatever it is.

You know, it's not that kind of love. It is the sacrificial love

of God. Not I love ice cream even though I know you love ice

cream. No, I love my kids even It's really about the sacrificial love.

What is sacrificial love compared to those kind of loves I just mentioned the

human their love sacrificial love, right you look beyond yourself right now. You

it's for the betterment of another person. That's how it needs to happen.

And you see God modeled it. That's why he came down human form to

the cross pat for something that he didn't even needed to do. Essentially because

it's for our sins sort as a self sacrificing love that we talked about,

and that if you understand that, it sort of shapes you. I know,

we sing about the potter's hand in cookingms, you know, tempering chocolate

and all that is very sensitive, right, it actually shapes you, you

know if you understand how this love, what God's love is And so the

question is back to this question, right, how much do you love yourself?

Reflect on it? Not that ego kind of love. Okay, just

to be regular. Second Timothy talks about ego kind of love. You can

look it up Second Timothy three where they say about uh, the lowers of

themselves okay in the last days. Not the kind of love that's a selfish

of love. It is the title of love that you have your eye on

the cross, the righteous kind of love to see that Lord, even though

I'm not worthy, and yet you see value in me. That kind of

a love. And this is where we're coming from. You need to see

the value yourself. Don't hit yourself. You already redeem God didn't come down

and just redeem it for no good reason, I know. But you need

to be reminded that God came down to redeem you. So please also live

a perpersonal life. And that's how I meant if you understand that, you

would do things. And this hole is, like I said, the guy

who's always dim in the room, that all this active rehearsing about I'm ugly,

I'm not good enough, I'm i'm or what. I don't use those

words, I'm a failure, et cetera. So those are not of God.

Definitely, don't devalue yourself. Remind yourself you are worth it because Jesus

has left Heaven to come down on earth for you, for you, specifically

you, and this is how and the only way we can embrace God's love.

I've got this next line. You receive God's love or embrace God's love.

If you see value in yourself throue God's lenses, you are worth it.

You are worth it. Okay, So back to the question. The

first step of relationship, really or loving relationship is really firstly to love God

with your own Don't worry about the six hundred over things that you've got to

drum true, focus on the two because, as I mentioned earlier, once

you love God correctly, everything else will fall into place. We will not

see the things that we normally murmur about. Passysandra talked about murmuring a few

weeks ago, and I think, sir, reminder that if you love God

how is meant to how it's designed to be, you will not focus on

the murmurings and all the small nittigritty stuff for the things that is insignificant.

What is that going about me? What does we come to sell Google.

How is you gonna prays a visord? These are small small things. If

you love God, everything else will fall in the line. Okay, so

remember this. I'm gonna end with this. Remember you are chosen, you

are loved, You are fully accepted by God. And that's how you should

approach this lationship of God. And if you if you have the enership of

God, you can then go out and then love your as more effectively.

We hope you've been blessed by this message. For more information on our church,

please visit Axchurch Org. We are also active on Facebook and Instagram.

We're believing that this week is going to be a good week, a hit

for you. God bless