Time passes no matter what we do. Time goes fast. What do you think? You realise that your life is also going fast because everything goes hand in hand with time. For the first 6 days when God created everything, there were no human being witnesses. He created everything in first 5 days that is beautiful to look at and admire it. He didn’t do one item per day but many. E.g many different species of fish but on the 6th day, He only took one dust to create you and I.
He made us special, “let us make one like us, one of us, a
part of us”. Although animals can
breathe, God did not use his mouth to breathe into those creatures, He only breathed into human beings. The love of God for humanity started here.
God gave us time to push us and help us to realise that we
will not be on this earth for eternity because eternal life is somewhere
else. He decided the human being will
die and when people die, it is painful because we don’t see them again except
if we meet with them in heaven. Because God
loves the world, He gave us that one verse, John 3:16: only 26 words. God gave his Son and whoever believes in his
son will never die. We trust in that and
believe in it.
The greatest commandment is to love your God with all your
mind, soul, strength and heart. Four
things. Have you stopped to think how someone
can love God with their soul? How to
love someone with my strength or mind?
Once you understand that, it is the beginning of knowing how God loves
you and how to love him back. If you
don’t understand how to love God, you will achieve nothing with love. Many Christians do not talk about this.
I have asked many pastors, “Why don’t you tell us how to
love with your soul? How do I love God
with all my heart? Teach it to me. How
to love God with my Strength? Teach me”, but no answer.
Today, we will focus on the second part where Jesus added to
love your neighbour in the same way you love yourself or your soul. Do you love yourself? God loves us and gave his only son and gave
us everything we have surrounding us.
Being created in the image of God means we must love other people.
Do you love yourself?
What is love to me? If I don’t
love myself, how will I love my neighbour?
If I don’t even know how to love, how will I love others? You can only give what you have. How much love do you have for yourself? When I think of myself, I don’t know what I
love about myself. “Odon, can you tell
yourself 20 things that prove you love yourself”. I couldn’t count 5.
When someone comes to you and says, “I love you”, you feel
good but when asked, do you love yourself, what is your answer? Jesus was trying to remind us that it is
impossible to enter Kingdom of God if you don’t understand how precious you are
to God and to love yourself.
Love has steps to grow, you need to do work and need
fertiliser to grow. Many people protect
their love because they don’t want it to be broken. Back home, we see people who kill themselves because
the one who loved them is dead or doesn’t love them anymore. I have seen people sacrifice everything for
love including putting their Bible down.
Imagine how you love your mum, friend, children. If you were asked, if you can only love one
person on this planet, who will it be?
Many will not say themselves.
Ange I am sure has one child on the top of the list. When we love those people, we are ready to
sacrifice even our own kidney for them to live. Imagine if we loved ourselves in
the same way.
We look at physical appearances and believe that is what it is to love
ourselves. Many will spend thousands of
dollars to look attractive. That is not
love or to love yourself, that is to be attractive to others not yourself. I once watched the Kardashians. They are see me see me, look at me, look at
me, focus on me. They can go through a
lot of things, take operations to appear beautiful. To look beautiful doesn’t mean people will
love you. They may appreciate your
beauty but they do not necessarily love you.
Imagine if the entire world could only love beautiful people, the world
would be different and Jesus would only come for the beautiful.
Human beings focus on things that are not important,
focusing on our beauty rather than our love.
When you want to love yourself for the Bible, you need to understand
that you were created in the image of God and because he loved the world so
much, he gave his only son. Do you give
what is precious to yourself or to others?
Do you give so others can also be saved.
We have soul, heart and body. God, you created us has been teaching us that
the body is just dust and not important.
We should focus on what is eternal.
Whoever trusts in God will love for eternity.
To love myself, I must be clean and happy and joyful with
all I see and appreciate it. Love is
patient, that is the first point of definition of love. Am I patient with myself? When you do a mistake in your life, we sometimes
become angry. Even a small mistake can
make you become wrong. Some people will
say, “it’s every time me, another mistake” and they are good at counting their
weaknesses rather than their strength.
When you love yourself, do you appreciate what you do? In my community we celebrate wins but in NZ
we don’t celebrate achievements or announce it.
Yesterday I went to Auckland, we saw Samoan vehicles with
their flags hanging out the window. They love their nation and are proud. They were proud of their identity. Are you proud of your identity as child of God? I must be proud of how God created me. God decided to create you in the way you are,
with your physical appearance and your nature.
We don’t have to imitate others, just be ourselves.
I can’t say that because Ange sings very well that I must
sing like her. Ange will still be Ange
and I will still be me. Men try to dance
like Michael Jackson, but they will never be Michael Jackson. Love who are and be natural, don’t try to be
synthetic.
When I read the Bible, am I patient or do I just read it
quickly?
1 Timothy 12:1, do you remember that you are a servant of God? God has chosen you and given you a place to
be and the strength. Are you strong
enough? Someone who is strong enough is
also strong in love. That’s how you know
if someone is strong by measuring their love.
Even if someone hates you or does wrong against you, you will love that
person if you are strong but if you hate, then you are weak.
The Bible says, let the weak believe they are strong and
only way to be strong is to love. After
being strong, you must be trustworthy. God
trusts you, according to Genesis 1, God gave creation to us to control. If God trusts you, why don’t you trust
yourself? Why are you unable to trust
yourself? You will only be able to trust
yourself when you love yourself.
I love my hands so I will use them for God, I love my time
so I will use it for reading Bible. My
father was good at soccer. Every day we
would play and he would always defeat me.
I was learning many skills and when I did those skills and pass my
father, I would mock him and say, “you know nothing, you see how good I am”. One time, by luck I won against my
father. I then told the other kids that
my dad has something to say and I pushed my dad to tell them that I won.
For me, my focus was winning but forgot all the games I lost
against him. Our love in Jesus should
have a focus of winning. What do I win
by being me? What do I love? Do I love my way of reading Bible, praying,
thinking of God.
How often we can think of our husband/wife or children and
we want to hear from them but how often do we think of God? Love between you and God should be like the
love you have for your family members.
Think about God. When you don’t
see God for a few days, do you panic, do you start the search for God?
How often do you call God to come back into your life? How often do you tell yourself to love
yourself? Do you love your heart? Your
soul? If so, what do you do to love your
soul/heart? If I ask my soul, what do
you love? What will it say? Some might say, when I read the book of Psalms,
I feel joy. When I sing a certain song,
I feel joy. Keep feeding your soul with
great things, take care of it.
When you love your soul, it will be easy to love your
neighbours. When you are patient with
your soul, you will be patient with others.
When your body asks for something at the same time as your soul, there will
be a fight. Your body will want to sin,
but soul doesn’t want it. How often do
you favour your soul when your body battles?
I jumped onto YouTube this morning, it said, “praying to God
is wrong, pray doesn’t work, if you pray, you won’t get money but if you give
money, you will get money, your prayers are useless just fight for money”. Why can’t you invest in your soul or for the desires
of heart to please the Father who sent his son to die for us. When you please God with your heart and soul,
you will get reciprocal love. If you
only say God loves me but you don’t love him back, it will be like the prodigal
son.
Love yourself first then compare the way you love yourself
to others. Do I pray for my neighbours? If I have a headache, I feel it but when my
neighbours go through pain, do I care or not?
The only thing I will look is when my dog barks at them as they pass.
When we do not care, we don’t love. Love
cares. Do you care about yourself?
Soon we will go back to heaven and my soul must go to God
and take our love that I have given to myself and others. If you have protected your soul, your soul
will testify. He fed his body 6x per day
but only fed me once/week. The body was
given all the privilege. You will have
to explain why you loved your body more than your soul or heart. Your body can’t defend you, it was your
decision.
Why did I give to you eyes but they were only on your phone
6 hours per day but no time to read the Word of God. Love yourself means to love your soul. Once you love your soul, you will pass that
on to your children. Look and try to
find what your soul needs. The need of
your body should come last.
