Learning to Walk in God's Love

Part 1

4/17/16
- Brad Ettore
Audio Written Summary Blog Post

Jesus gave us one commandment: that we would love one another in the same way that He has loved us.Our love is the signpost for the world to know Jesus! Loving people is being like God. Consider this: what is the one thing we can know that the Father is doing with everyone on the planet at all times? He is loving them! Why does God not hate sinners? Isn’t He just in His judgment of sin? Of course God is completely just in the judgment of sin; God has already punished their sin!God has already forgiven the sin debt of all people, but they have to CHOOSE to receive that gift. The world is just one step away from all the blessings of God in their life - and that is to receive salvation. This is the New Covenant and it is based on one single commandment and that is to love! You cannot love parents and hate their children. If you want to have the greatest relationship with God, the greatest joy, the fullness of God in your life, you can do it by loving other people! Throw off judgment - it is none of our business! It’s taken care of - God’s got it! All we have to do is love!

Part 2: Loving Unbelivers

5/1/16
- Brad Ettore
Audio Written Summary Blog Post

“For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.”(Rom. 5:10) When were we reconciled according to that verse? Was it when we accepted Christ into our lives? No! It was when we were still enemies that we were reconciled - before we accepted Christ! But how could reconciliation for the whole world have already occurred? It was Jesus’ death that paid the price! It has nothing to do with us. It was an agreement between the Father and the Son. Jesus came and paid the price for our sins and the Father said “accepted.” The whole world, literally, has been forgiven of their sins. However, that is not salvation.His death brought reconciliation, His life brings salvation (eternal life). If you believe God is angry and hating sinful people, it will affect your actions towards others! This is an era of reconciliation. God imputed everyone’s sins to Christ.  He is not holding any of them against anyone!  Yes, there will be a Judgment Day - but it’s not today!  Prior to The Judgment Day, the world has the opportunity to come to the Lord now with no animosity between them and God - so that they might receive His Son. God is already at peace with all people! And since there is no animosity between the God and the world, neither should we have ANY animosity between us and them!  Just love for them.

Part 3: Dealing with Unforgiveness and Offense

6/5/16
- Brad Ettore
Audio Written Summary Blog Post

As believers, we all know that we are supposed to walk in love, but are we loving others like Jesus loves us?  We may think that the love walk is hard. But when you start believing correctly the love walk is really, really easy. In fact, you will actually find that not walking in love is infinitely times harder than walking in love.

 
The first reason to walk in love is because your Father wants you to!  The second benefit to walking in love is that it is how we experience God’s fullness. Jn. 15:9-12 says that if you obey God’s commandment—to love one another as I have loved you—your joy will be FULL!
 
Loving people is not about feelings.  God says “Overcome evil with good!”  Every part of Christianity is about whether we are going to be moved by our feelings or by the Word of God.That is our choice at all times. When I fail in my Christian walk, I always fail for the same reason—I was moved by my feelings instead of the Word. When I am successful is when I make a decision to be moved by the Word irregardless of my feelings.  The whole reason our feelings even get involved is because we are still way too alive! God says we are to die to self! Someone has said “you will never be greatly used by God until you get your ‘I’ punched out.”
 
The greatest hindrance to loving people is unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is always triggered by offense.  Our Father doesn’t want us to harbor unforgiveness.  We need to know that unforgiveness is a toxic poison in the heart.  It will literally cause you to physically decay. It will cause you to mentally bog down. It is emotionally destructive.  We need to realize that ALL unforgiveness in the heart is demonic in nature. Unforgiveness is NOT of God.  Unforgiveness is you and I drinking poison—hoping that they will die. So, let’s find a better way to deal with it!
 
So, how do we walk in love and constant forgiveness towards everyone?
  1. By possessing correct theology (or in other words, thinking like God thinks).
  2. We must have faith in our God-likeness.
  3. We often have a hard time forgiving someone because we mix the concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation, but God does not say “be reconciled to everyone.” NO. He says “forgive everyone.”  Reconciliation takes both parties, forgiveness only requires you. “With everything that is within YOU, be at peace with all men.”
  4. You and I are not the judge of the earth. Your Father asks you to give to them what He already gave to you in a much bigger way. God is saying “I forgave you of a massive debt. I am asking you to do the same for them.” God is actually going to balance all the books at the end perfectly! We can release them to the only lawgiver that there is and no that He is perfect in His ways!