A Closer Look at God's Love.

Revelation 2:3-5
3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. 4 Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

Happy May Day! Too often we become consumed in ourselves. We miss the purpose of life, love, and many other things. Have you ever had one particular thing on your mind which dominates over everything else? I mean nothing comes close to successfully conveying a message to you when you have that one thought nestled in your brain.

It's often in our self-absorption that we ask the question: "How come I'm not experiencing God's love?" The answer is that you have too many blockades in your life...whether they're spiritual, emotional, or physical blockades. You can't just "dip your toes in the pool" like Mike Guzzardo said last weekend.

You have to remember that evil thoughts come from the devil himself and NOT God! That's where many people go wrong and thus they blame their circumstances on God. Sure God may allow you to grow from your negativity, however, he doesn't intentionally sit and say what evil plot can I introduce to you today? That's Satan's role.

Then Mike said one of my favorite lines of the weekend. You see, so many times we give in to sin because it looks good, it's fun, or we simply don't know any better. That is, until we dig in a little deeper. He said, "sin is like chocolate-covered feces." (He even made t-shirts with this on it!) That sounds so gross, but it was the talk of Tampa last Friday night and Saturday. You may nibble and it seems pretty good. However, when you make a huge dive, a whole different outcome results. It's not pleasant, and well, you have to pay the consequences.

The good news is that Jesus gives us time to repent. He forgives and forgets. If God says something doesn't exist, it doesn't! Lord, open our eyes to what is right and hold us in your hands so that we remember you always love and forgive us. Consume us with your majesty.

One last song that I'm going to share with you by Unhindered is "Father Will You Come."



P.S. If you have trouble with the video stopping and starting, keep the video paused, and let it "buffer" (load) as it's called for a while. You will see the red bar along the bottom advance (speed depends on your Internet connection). Wait until that bar gets pretty far along (I'd say more than halfway) before you play the video and it shouldn't pause.