How to Experience The Love of God - Part 1

If you have your Bibles go with me to the Book of Daniel chapter 11, verse 32. You ought to have a dent there by now. Daniel 11 and 32. We've been talking about, you know, this intimate presence of God. We spoke a lot about, last week, learning how to value... valuing knowing God. And we got into something last week that I really want to dig a little deeper in. We were talking about experiencing the love of God. And a lot of times when you talk about the love of God you have so many Christians who they really think they got it because they think this is talking about how much you love God and it gives you an opportunity to kind of gloat a little bit about, "I love God". But that's not all. That's not it at all. We're missing the whole context of what he's trying to show with that love. And he's talking about how much you believe that love. How much you believe it. And a lot of times Christians say they believe it, but then when you look at their actions they're not believing at all. When you're walking around carrying care, you're not believing the love of God. When you walk around wondering when you're going to be defeated, that's not believing in the love of God. When you believe the love of God, you say, "I believe God's love for me. That's why I know I'm going to be healed. I'm going to be delivered. This is going to be fine. This is going to work out". And God wants to hear that rehearsed and coming out of our mouth. "I believe that God loves me. I believe that God loves me". You know there's a situation, I don't recall exactly where I heard this from, but there was a mental institution where there was some pretty deranged people there. I mean, they were pretty much gone. Put there, committed there, never to be discharged. And this dear brother just kind of, you know, one by one invited them in for their sessions, but they didn't understand anything, and so he just decided to take their session and sing, "Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so". And a couple of weeks and nothing happened, but then eventually some of those patients started coming in, and one of them came in and he just started singing, "Jesus loves me. This I know". And before you know it he's on the unit singing, "Jesus loves me. This I know". And then all of a sudden, a great portion of that unit began to sing, "Jesus loves me. This I know". That's all. And something miraculous happened. They started getting better as they continued singing, "Jesus loves me. This I know". And something miraculous continued to happen. They started getting discharged, people who were never supposed to be discharged. Somebody said, "What happened"? There's something about when you release your faith in the love of God for you. There were no gigantic revelations being shared. Nobody laid hands on anybody. It was a recognition and an acceptance that, "Jesus love me". And while their mind was a little messed up, their spirit received that message. "Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so". And this is for every Christian who thinks that you got to get deep with God to get something to happen. A little children song that was full of truth. "Jesus loves me. This I know". And they came and asked and said, "Well, what did you do"? Said, "I just started singing, 'Jesus loves me. This I know,' to them, and it ministered to their spirit". In some of the roughest times of my life when I couldn't figure out what to do or how to get out of this situation, I remember that testimony in which is simply say, "Jesus loves me. This I know". I may not know a lot, but I know this: he loves me. How do I know? The Bible tells me so. You want to run the devil away from your situations, "Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so". Oh, glory to God. I feel the Holy Ghost in this place right now. Amen? Daniel chapter 11 and 32 says, "And such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flatteries; but the people that do know their God". Those people who know their God, who know him as far as a knowing of him, having a knowledge of him, and then knowing him experientially. And the only way you can experience God is through his love. And to know him, he says, "They shall be strong and do exploits". Exploits are amazing feats, deeds, noteworthy, or extraordinary acts of achievements, humanly unacceptable or unaccomplishable, excuse me, and naturally unattainable. Someone says, "How can that happens"? It's when you slide out of the way and have faith in the love of God. These exploits starts taking place. You got to be strong because you have something that people are looking over and not paying attention to and trying to get something deeper, you know, more, more, more. And you've come to the place where you're saying, "I have all I need right now, I have the experience of his love, and I have faith that no matter what happens in my life, Jesus loves me, and because Jesus loves me, this is going to be all right. Jesus loves me, and because Jesus loves me, that promise is going to come to pass. Jesus loves me, and because he loves me, I'm going to be all right". Sometimes we get so deep we pass over the simple and the most powerful things in search of how we can do these exploits. And I'm convinced that they that know their God, and my question this morning is do you know your God or do you just know about your God? I'm no longer interested in how much I know about God. I've exchanged my knowledge about God for knowing him and experiencing his love and experiencing that fellowship with him that in the midst of those situations and circumstance that come up in my life, I know God. I know him. Why do I know him? I spend time with him. I talk to him, and he talks right back to me. I have confidence in what he tells me. I can believe what he promised me because I know he loves me. So you have to understand that the number one tack of the devil is going to be to try to convince you that God doesn't love you, God doesn't care, God don't... it's God who did that, it's God that made that happen. You hear uninformed people tell you, "God's trying to show you something. That's why he did that. That's why you had the car wreck. That's why you got sick". They don't know God at all because when you know God you know that's not a part of his character. When you know God you don't have that kind of impression of God, but when you have a wrong impression of God you'll blame him for the wars, you'll blame him for your lack, you'll blame him for the divorce, you'll blame him for losing the job, you'll blame him for molly, but when you know God and situations happen, you can say, "I don't know all about what just happened, but there's one thing I do know. God loves me". Hallelujah. And so they that know their God. How? Through an intimate, personal relationship and an experience of that love. That's what he's talking about here. They that know their God, you're going to be strong 'cause you know God. You're going to be strong because you know God. You're going to be strong not only because you know God, but you've experienced his love. I want you to think for a moment. How many times has God delivered you out of a ditch? Lord, have mercy. You understand what I'm saying? I want you to think for a moment. How many times has God rescued you from a mental attack, you know, where your thoughts are distracting your soul and you're going nuts with all these crazy thoughts that the enemy is bringing in, and because he can see down the street, around the corner and you can't, you have to fight the doubt, you have to fight all of that? "God, I know you're real, but this is crazy. I'm hurting. I'm messed up". And then he showed up and did something that you can't even explain. See, I'm asking for you to have a flashback. I don't want to sit around and hear about your explanations of how much you know. I don't want to know your Greek and Hebrew explanations, and all you can ever do is explain something to me. I want to know. I want to walk with him. I want to talk with him. I want to know him. So when something shows up, you know, there are some people who have tried to show me Scriptures and say, "No, you're wrong". And I'm like, "Uh-uh, I know him. I don't know about that Scripture you just showed me, I got to read the whole context 'cause most likely you took it out of context, but what I do know is that's not God. That's not the God that I talk to every day. That's not the God that rescued me out of a pit. That's not the God that healed my body. That's not the God that gave me provision when I didn't know where the money was going to come from. That's not the God that gave me peace in the midst of a hard time. I might not understand that Scripture, but I know him, and I know that's not him". I said I wasn't going to holler today. I also said I wasn't going to cry today, but I know him. I'm just trying to get everybody else to understand what I'm saying. Your knowledge without knowing God is no good. Why have the knowledge about him and not know him? Are you listening to me? Experiencing God's love. Let's look at that just for a moment. Experiencing God's love. Let's look at the Book of Ephesians chapter 3, verse 16 through 20 in the NLT. I just want to read that again before I get started. The experience of his love is when God shows up and he pours the results of his love on your life. And here's the thing that I realized. That you don't have to be saved to experience God's love. I bet you everybody in here has an experience of God's love before you got saved. That's one of the reasons you're saved, 'cause if you experienced his love, and you was like, "That got to be a God, and wherever he is I got to worship him". Look at this. Verse 16, "I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit". So now I'm looking for that empowerment. We all have it, who are born again because the Holy Spirit, Romans 5 and 5, has poured the love of God on the inside of our spirits. Verse 17, "Then Christ will make his home in your hearts". That just, that gets me every time. Christ desires to be at home in me. Christ desires to be at home in you. But what is Christ? Somebody say, "Jesus's last name". No, it's not. It's the anointed one. The anointed one in his anointing desires to reside on the inside of my heart. He says, "Now, how can that happen"? As you trust in him. Do you trust God this morning or are you pretending to trust God or, you know, because you got a t-shirt that says, "I'm a Christian"? Do you trust him? Do you trust God this morning? I mean, what is this about? Is this about the obligation to come to church so I can fulfill my quota for the week? And then once you fulfilled your quota for the week, and you go home and you trust every system except God. I tell you, these systems are going to fail. The systems that you trust all of your life will no longer work. Why? You're going to have to decide whether you're going to trust yourself, whether you're going to trust the government, whether you're going to trust the systems, or whether you're going to trust that God who'll never fail you. I've decided to trust God. Some stuff getting ready to open and happen, and I don't plan on rocking with none of that. I'm going to rock with Jesus. I'm going to rock with him. Look what he says. In verse 18 he says, "And may you have the power to understand". This is awesome. Listen to this. "May you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how wide, how long, how high, how deep his love is". His love is not like ours, fluctuating. His love is not like ours, so hurt you can't figure how to do it. He says, look at the next part of the next verse, "May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully". He says, "I want you to experience love that's too great for you to fully understand". Here's what I believe he's saying. You can understand this love to a certain point, but for human beings it goes way deeper than that point. There are some things you don't think God would ever forgive and there are some people you'll think you'll... there's no way in the world they can get to heaven, but you don't know how deep this love is. It's deep. It's deeper than our love. We don't have a comprehension and a understanding of how deep God's love is. It's so deep that you can hardly escape it, yeah, and the only thing you're going to be able to do eventually is abandon yourself in that love. It's so deep that your craziest crazy will never be able to stop its operation. Be careful how you judge who going to heaven and who not because I can guarantee you three things you're going to see in heaven. You're going to look around and you're going to see somebody that you thought was not going to make it, then you're going to look around and see some people you knew would be there, and then you're going to look around and say, "Thank God I made it". But I can guarantee you you're going to see some people that you didn't think were going to make it. "Well, he killed somebody. How he get in"? So did Moses. So did David, and David was a Peeping Tom too. You better be careful 'cause God's love is too deep. It doesn't reside on this human level. Oh, and I'm glad about it because if it had not been for the Lord on my side, I don't even want to think about where I would be. You either. It's deep. It's deep. Have mercy on us, Lord. Have mercy on us, Lord. Have mercy on everybody that's ever mistreated you. Have mercy on anybody that's ever stolen from you. Have mercy on anybody that's ever broke your heart in a million pieces. Have mercy on them, Lord, not get them back, or, "I want revenge," or kill them. Don't be like Jonah. Jonah got mad at God 'cause God promised, "I'm going to destroy Nineveh," and then he changed his mind because they all repented and went on a fast and God said, "Oh my god, I done changed my mind". And then Jonah like, "What? Oh, man, no. Just go on kill me. Just kill me". He was mad and unwilling to forgive because God showed them mercy. Sounds like some of us, huh? God has forgiven us over, and over, and over, and over and you still can't find it in your heart to forgive somebody. Hallelujah. Now look at verse 20 in the TPT. We'll put it up for you. It's the Passion Translation. "Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power". So he's able to do this. He said, "Never doubt God's mighty power to work in you," that's love, "and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, more than your most unbelievable dream, and he will exceed your wildest imagination". Let me let you in on a secret. God loves when we believe big. Some of y'all got that little, teeny-weeny, broke kind of believing. "Well, I believe for a little bit first". He loves when you believe big because he's ready to exceed, hallelujah, your wildest imagination. "He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you". I ain't going around believing big and I'm not going around and believing cheap. I'm going, I mean, excuse me. I'm not believing small and cheap. I'm going to believe big and extravagant. And God's like, "That's my boy. That's my boy. That's my boy". Quit believing God for little. God is a big God, and he's ready to do some big, extraordinary things in your life, but he's waiting for you to believe him. That's how big his love is. Now, let's get into this a little bit here. Verse 19 Paul is speaking about experiencing God's love in a way that is infinitely greater than mere intellectual knowledge. We thought, "Well, that's where it is. We got to know someone. We have to just have to have intellectual knowledge". Of course, that's the door, that's the place we began, but it's not the place we stop, just the obtaining of mere intellectual knowledge. He says when you experience God's love you will be filled with all the fullness of God. What happens is when you experience God's love and you believe God's love, something transformative begins to take place in your life. See, we're working on keeping all the rules to change rather than experiencing his love and he'll help you keep all the rules and change you. Experiencing his love. Experiencing him. We keep trying to be like God without God, experiencing him, and then all of a sudden people around you they see more than somebody who knows about God. They sense you know God. When you come off to the house, their atmosphere changes. When you open their mouth, they feel the anointing. People that are not born again, you get around some of those people, and you know God intimately, they get chill bumps. I had a guy to come to my house, and we were close friends, but hadn't seen him in a while. And he came in the house and sat down, and I just looked at him and I said, "What's going on"? He started shaking and then he just broke down and started crying. I knew what it was. He had gotten so far away from the presence of God, when he came back to, it started impacting him until finally a grown man was just crying. I said, "What's wrong"? And then he just started preaching. Anytime somebody walk in your house and they're not quite right, they ought to feel a little uncomfortable. The visit either needs to be transformative or short.