I'm so glad to see all of you today.
Heavenly Father,
Creator of all things, there sometimes seems so to be so much going on in our lives, so many things to achieve. Quiet our minds
make still our hearts
We confess that we often find it hard to truly give you time that You deserve.
Help us to lay down our tasks, have more patience to achieve these concerns, more courage to approach them and more peace within them.
Remind us that in the midst of struggles, in You, we are rich.
We know, that in You, we will find more love than we ever believed possible, a sense of peace that fills our hearts and the renewed strength to face the difficult challenges that lie ahead.
In Jesus name we ask and pray
Amen
If there is one truth more than any other, that I deeply wish we could somehow awaken and make ourselves available, it is that God loves us! The One and only Deity, the infinite Creator, the One who holds the winds in His hands, makes the clouds and whose almighty arms embrace the infinite starry expanse of the universe, loves us all!
He loves us without exception! God loves all races, creeds, and colors indiscriminately, and yet He loves each individual distinctively.
That is the most profound, elevating, comforting news that was ever flashed from the throne of God, and it broke like a morning sunrise upon planet Earth!
"God so loved.... God so loved the world.... God so loved the world that he gave....God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son… God so…
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
John 3:16
When that wonderful truth grips your mind, and you gratefully respond to it, your whole life and your entire outlook on life will be dramatically transformed!
All of life will take on a new meaning:
Your mind will be renewed.
There will be a new song in your heart.
It will put a new calmness in your spirit.
You will experience rest for your soul, even during hard times.
A courageous confidence will come to you concerning the future!
The love of God to all men everywhere is the pinnacle of Biblical revelation!
Everything else has to climb up to it!
Jesus Christ is the peak expression of it. The cross and His shed blood is the intense focal point of it. The glorious fact of "whosoever will may come" is the generous out-flowing of it!
I’M TALKING ABOUT CALVARY'S LOVE!
It is bigger than our biggest sin. It forgives transgressions that are too numerous to count. It gives release from the heaviest burden of guilt!
CALVARY'S LOVE sought us and CALVARY'S BLOOD bought us! It was there – on Calvary’s hill of sorrow, that sin’s demands were paid! It was there, on the cross of Christ, that rays of hope for tomorrow across our paths were laid!
Infinite love caused the heartbeat of God to pound the most stridently at Calvary. Divine love for mankind caused the pulse of God’s only begotten Son to cease on the tree. But three days later His unquenchable and undying love raised him from the dead and caused Him to ascend into the heavens and seated Him at His own right hand.
I don't know any better news to tell you than that GOD LOVES YOU!
The idea of a God who gives all without condition and loves us all equally, just as we are, is incredible. But it is true!
"For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
Romans 5:6-8
I cannot tell you how long He has loved us, but I can trace it back 2,000 years and show you a stable, a manger, shepherds, wise men, Gethsemane, a whipping post, and a cross.
BUT HE LOVED US EVEN BEFORE THAT!
"The Lord your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.”
Zephaniah 3:17
Beyond that day, He loved you and me when He formed us from the dust of the ground, breathed into our nostrils and man became a living soul. He loved us when he placed us in a beautiful home, called the Garden of Eden, where He visited us every day.
This ought to blow our minds: Even before the foundation of the world, He was the lamb for sinners slain! How long did God love us before that? I really don't know!
How much does he love us?
The apostle Paul said he wanted "to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge."
Ephesians 3:19
What a paradox! It seems illogical, but the love of God is so designed that we might be always learning and continually grasping after, that which shall never be completely known!
This means trying to know the unknowable, comprehend the
incomprehensible, fathom the unfathomable, explore the unexplored, define the indefinable!
WE WILL NEVER KNOW IT COMPLETELY!
Though we learn some today, there will be more yet to learn tomorrow. Even in a world without end, when we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we will still be reveling in the depth, length and breadth of the love of God, FOR GOD IS LOVE!
An unknown person penned these words:
"Could we with ink the ocean fill, and were the skies of parchment made. Where every stalk on earth a quill, and every man a scribe by trade. To write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry nor could the scroll contain the whole though stretched from sky to sky!“
How much did He love me? I really don't know, but it was enough to cause him to lay aside His regal robes of splendor and allow himself to be wrapped in swaddling clothes. He loved me enough to trade the majestic throne of his eternal kingdom to be suspended on a rugged cross. It was enough to exchange his royal diadem for a crown of piercing thorns, enough to trade a kingly scepter for a common walking stick, enough to quit living amongst unceasing worship from the holy seraphim who guarded his throne to endure a jeering mob that screamed, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"
He gave up heavenly manna that he might fast 40 days and be hungry. He left the pure river of water of life to come and cry, "I thirst!" He gave up the innumerable army of mighty angels that he might come and be alone in Gethsemane and pray until His sweat became as it were great drops of blood!
He came to where we were, in order to bring us to where He is!
He gave up rest for no place to lay His head.
He who was adored and reverenced subjected himself to be despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. BUT HE JUST KEPT LOVING THE WORLD!
He loved us enough to be wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities, chastised and whipped for our peace and to pay the price for our healing.
He loved me enough to pour out His soul even unto death. He loved me enough to be numbered with the transgressors. He loved us all enough to bear the sins of all, and He made intercession for all transgressors! He loved us enough that in the days of His flesh He prayed all night - many nights - and a great while before many of his work days began.
I CAN’T FULLY TELL HOW MUCH HE LOVES US, but enough to cry out "forgive them for they know not what they do."
IT CANNOT BE EXTINGUISHED. God's love is unending, undiminished, forever, eternal! His love is a book that will never be completed! Use it today. More will be there tomorrow!
It is stronger than death. Death cannot destroy it.
Song of Solomon 8:7
"Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor can the floods drown it.
If a man would give for love
All the wealth of his house,
It would be utterly despised."
It is broader than the ocean, deeper than the sea!
Longer than time!
Higher than heaven!
Deeper than hell!
And to think, that love has been manifested toward you and me!
“Oh what love, what boundless love, God has bestowed upon me!”
No wonder the Apostle John, who moved in a circle of love, cried out,
"Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him."
1 John 3:1
"As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends."
John 15:9-13
"By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren."
1 John 3:16
LOVING IN THE WAY JESUS LOVED IS THE ONLY WAY WE ARE GOING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE CHURCH AND IN OUR WORLD.
You can help make a difference in the church, if you will love one another with the love of God that he shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit!
Love forgets a person’s past sins and failures and considers them to be under the blood!
In a trilogy of stories about being lost, Jesus gives three parables.
First is the lost sheep:
Lost because of curiosity. Seeing a gap in the hedge, it had wandered from the flock. We know what the shepherd did. He left the ninety and nine and went on the rocky steep all night through the heat and the cold until he found that one lost sheep. He bound him with cords of love and brought him safely back to the fold.
The lost coin:
Due to carelessness or by accident, it was either intentionally mishandled or unconsciously dropped, but a woman turned her house upside down and swept in every nook and corner until she found that lost coin.
The lost son:
He became lost willfully, rebelliously, because of his own choices. He was lost without anyone to blame for his condition but himself. But there is a father in this third parable who sadly gave the inheritance to his son and watched him move away, but gladly welcomed his penniless son home again. He runs to meet him and falls on his neck. He kisses him and orders the fatted calf to be killed. He gave him the best robe and the ring. "This is my beloved son. Lost because of his own willful, stubborn and rebellious way." The story Jesus told revealed the heart of God who so loved that He gave all.
He even told the pouting brother who stubbornly refused to take part in the welcome party for his younger brother,
"And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’"
Luke 15:31-32
Whether you are lost because of curiosity of what the world has to offer, or you just stumbled into sin, or willfully rebelled, God's love is extended to you, and all that He has can be yours!
Loving the way Jesus loved is the only way that we are going to reach our world because love is something God does.
It's what God is!
He doesn't just say it.
He does it!
See Him reaching for the outcast, the friendless, the hopeless, the hungry, the naked, the poor, the shackled, the imprisoned, the hurting, the suffering, the brokenhearted, the abandoned, the maimed, the lame, the blind.
See Him weeping over that ill-fated city of Jerusalem. See Him weeping as He stands by Lazarus' grave. See Him move with compassion as He looks at the hungry multitude.
THAT IS WHAT LOVE CAN DO! LOVING THE WAY JESUS LOVED IS THE ONLY WAY TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN OUR WORLD!
AGAPE LOVE; THE LOVE OF GOD!
Divine love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. It requires continual dependence upon the Holy Ghost for he who has the gift of tongues should have the gift of love! He who has the gift of faith ought to have the gift of love!
Faith works by love:
Say that with me,
Faith works by love!
They are the gifts of the spirit. The Holy Spirit is love and when you receive the Holy Spirit, you receive agape, divine love.
God wants all of His people to have the gift of love, for the fruit of the Spirit is love!
"By your fruit, love - not gifts, shall they know you are my disciples." A love that divides and criticizes is not agape love. A love that seeks its own revenge is not divine love. A love that refuses to initiate reconciliation is not agape love. A love that says it won't forgive is not agape love!
Love works no ill to his neighbor. I cannot fulfill the royal law without it. If I offend in one point, I am guilty of it all. Love is the only way to fulfill it.
Love is patient, suffers long and refuses to retaliate. God-love is kind. Kindness rejects cruelty and seeks constructive ways to improve another person's life. You are something that God made in His image, and down in every human heart that has been crushed by the tempter, there are feelings lying buried that grace can restore, touched by a loving heart awakened by kindness. Cords that were broken can vibrate once more!
Love is not jealous.
Say that with me,
Love is not jealous!
Jealousy is as cruel as the grave. Love does not boast. Love does not vaunt (boast) itself, does not seek to impress. Love does not parade itself and does not seek personal gain. Love is courteous and never acts out of character, irresponsible. It never perverts its way. It is not crude, rude or lewd. Love always acts in the best interests of others.
Love is unselfish!
Say that with me,
LOVE IS UNSELFISH!
Divine love cost something. It does not pursue selfish advantages. Love shares with others and does not seek its own.
It does not use others to get where it wants to go. Love is not provoked. Love is not irritable or touchy and never loses control of itself. It never responds in anger and doesn't lash out while being reviled. He reviled not while suffering. Love uttered no threats.
Love forgives!
Say that with me,
LOVE FORGIVES!
Love, when wronged, has a short memory. It forgets what it forgives. It doesn't keep a record of a wrong suffered.
Love delights in truth. It hath no pleasure in wickedness and contends for the faith that was once delivered. Love hates sin and loves righteousness.
I am talking about the kind of love that drove the money changers from the temple with a whip of cords. I am talking about the kind of love that Jesus showed by healing the withered hand of a man on the Sabbath.
Jesus looked at the religious leaders with anger when they questioned His act of love and mercy. I am talking about the kind of love that hates every false way and refuses to bid God's speed to those who hate the truth.
I am talking about a love that has substance, a love that has strength. I am talking about a love that is a savor of life unto life, or death unto death. I am talking about a love that has power and strength, a love for truth and a love for righteousness!
Love will even make it possible to exist in a colorless, drab, uneventful life without giving up! Love never gives up! It bears, believes and hopes. Love endures. It is sufficient for every moment of life, the past, the present, and the future. Love never goes out of style. Love is never surpassed. Love is never replaced. Prophecy, faith and hope shall cease.
Love is permanent! It thrives at all times and in all places. Love is the only grace that we carry with us into eternity!
It is superior to faith and hope. Love is the greatest! Love never fails. Love abideth not alone. Love will never be taken out of the game. Love will never be booed off the stage. Love will never get the gong. Love will keep on keeping on after everything else has long ceased.
Love is the greatest! Love surpasses all! A rediscovery of that kind of love is the only way we are going to make a difference in our world!
People with that kind of love will love truth uncompromisingly, even unto death. God-love will start a revival that neither the devil nor hell can stop!
That kind of love will lay hold of God's sovereign will, and it will take care of every devastated area. It will stand in the gap and make up the hedge.
God-love will fast not only food, but it will live a fasted life as revealed in Isaiah, chapter 58. It will bind up the broken-hearted. It will unlock prison doors. It will set the captives free. It will hurt when others hurt and suffer with those who suffer. Love will weep with those who weep. It will rejoice with those who rejoice.
God-love will love the loving and the unloving, the lovable and the unlovable, the lovely and the unlovely. It will love its enemies, love its friends, love when the victor's crown is gleaming, love when defeat has spread her gloom. God-love will love when shame has come our way and when no friend comes into view.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE. LOVE! Love never gives up!
Paul said, "The love of Christ constraineth me. I was stoned and left for dead, but I couldn't lie there. I had to get up and preach on.
I was constrained. I gloried in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecution, in distress. I was beaten with many stripes. I was shipwrecked. I was weary. I was in pain. I was hungry. I was thirsty. I was in fastings often. I was cold. I was naked. The care of all the churches was upon me daily, but love constrained me. Love drove me. Love sent me from continent to continent, from city to city."
If you have left your first love, repent. LOVING THE WAY JESUS LOVED IS THE ONLY WAY WE ARE GOING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN OUR WORLD.
Church, don't you know the unbelievers in the fast lane headed for hell can only be rescued by the power of God? Not only must we intercede, but we must get something from God every day and reach people every day. We must reach out to them with love and mercy and the truth which will set them free. Only the truth can set them free! We must intercede in unceasing prayer until the bands are broken, until we bring in every lost sheep, until we rescue every prodigal, and until we find every lost coin!
A thousand million souls are dying with no conviction of their lost
condition simply because we lack deep convictions about eternal woe and a burning lake of fire.
It is impossible to win souls with cold hearts and dry eyes! There must be a deep humility of soul with mourning, with fasting, with intercession and groanings that cannot be uttered. Then God will work and only then!
Somebody has got to hear this message and get this!
You can't pray mechanically! You can't go to church mechanically. You can't fast mechanically. If you don't love the way Jesus loved, you are just performing and are as a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal.
LOVING THE WAY JESUS LOVED!
Agonized wrestling in prayer is something more. It means to get down before God and stay down before Him until you get hold of the horns of the altar and prevail. This kind of wrestling involves pleading, begging, agonizing, sweating, persevering, persistent seeking, asking and knocking until something happens!
Love never gives up! It abides not alone. I want to repent of not loving souls like I ought to love them. I want to repent of not praying until it has happened. I want to repent of not living a fasted life. I want to repent of not reaching, loving, saving, helping until I love the way Jesus loved. I want to keep on reaching until I get that kind
of love, and then we will change our world.
What about it, preachers? Are there any preachers who want to love like
Jesus loved? What about it, Sunday School teachers? What about it,
workers? What about it, helpers? What about it, mothers and fathers?
What about your children? What about your church? What about your city?
What about your class?
I'm preaching to somebody out there under the sound of my voice!
In closing....
Church, unless someone intercedes, there are those who will never be saved.
Unless somebody repents, unless somebody forgives and until somebody holds on to God and stands in the gap, there are those who will never be saved! There are those who will never be healed. We need people who are willing to be intercessors.
This kind of praying motivated by Christ-love is the key to the great revival of these last days. All of the great moves and manifestations of the Spirit of God must be born in the spirit of groanings travail.
We must bring them forth from the bowels of our being as is said of the true mother in I Kings, chapter 3. "Her bowels yearned upon her son."
Beware in your prayers!
Above everything in limiting God, is our doubt and unbelief!
Expect unexpected things, above all that we ask, think or imagine!
The church must begin to give birth now!
When Zion travails from her innermost being, it will happen!
THE ONLY WAY WE ARE GOING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN OUR WORLD IS LOVING THE WAY JESUS LOVED!
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Brian Monzon Ministries