4. God Pursues a Love Relationship

Matthew 22:37–38 NKJV

37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and great commandment.

If we go back to this picture from week one we have the Realities of Experiencing God.

God is always at work.

God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.

God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.

God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purpose, and His ways.

God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.

You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing?

You come to know God by experience as you obey Him, and He accomplishes His work through you.

The focus this week is #2.

God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.

We are created for a love relationship with God.

“Everything in your Christian life, everything about knowing Him and experiencing Him, everything about knowing His Will depends on the quality of your love relationship with God.”

Let’s look at the following verses and note the number of times the word love or a form of love is used.

Deuteronomy 30:19–20 NKJV

19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; 20 that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”

John 3:16 NKJV

16 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 14:21 NKJV

21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

1 John 3:16 NKJV

16 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.

God is pursuing a love relationship with us and we should be seeking a deeper love relationship with Him. This next question will help us answer how much we value our relationship with God.

If you lost all your money and possessions, but you had a vibrant walk with God, could you truly be happy?

Listen to this poem written by Rhea Miller that was put to music and made popular my George Beverly Shea.

I’d Rather Have Jesus – The Lyrics I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold; I’d rather be His than have riches untold; I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands, I’d rather be led by His nail pierced hand. Than to be a king of a vast domain Or be held in sin’s dread sway, I’d rather have Jesus than anything This world affords today. I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause; I’d rather be faithful to His dear cause; I’d rather have Jesus than world-wide fame, I’d rather be true to His holy name. He’s fairer than lilies of rarest bloom; He’s sweeter than honey from out of the comb; He’s all that my hungering spirit needs, I’d rather have Jesus and let Him lead.

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