Welcome

to a wake up call born out of much love for all the German

speaking people.

 

Thesis: What kind of love does Jesus our Redeemer require from

the believers who look to Him for the forgiveness of their sins?

 

     Our love for God and Jesus, as we have noticed before, shows itself in our

willingness to do everything He asks of us out of a humble, loving and trus-

ting devotion to Him. For, we read: “This is love for God: to obey his com-

mands. And his commands are not burdensome.”(1.Jn. 5:3; 2:3-5; Jn.14:15)

 

His love and our love for Him join each other and become the perfect

love through our obedience to His Word!

 

Jesus told His Apostles: “Whoever has my commands and obeys them,

he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and

I too will love him and show myself to him” (Jn. 14:21).

Jesus also said: “He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.

These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent

me” (Jn. 14:24).

 

     Do we German speaking people have His “commands”, His “teachings”?

Do we have access to “the Bible”?

 

We all can recognize, that our love for Jesus is not good enough with-      

 out our obedience to His commandments i.e. obedience to the faith.

                                                                          (Ro. 1:5,6; 1,Pet, 1:22)

 

Jesus requires even more. He says: “Anyone who loves his father or

mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or

daughter more than me is not worthy of me; (Mt. 10:37)

 

Jesus gets even personal when He says: “In the same way, any of you

who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.” (Lk. 14:33)

 

We have to love Jesus so much, that the love for our family seems like

hate in comparison. Yes, we are commanded to love our father, mother and

family members, but we need to love Jesus much more than these.

 

All the excuses why we don’t have time to serve Him, come from the

fact, that we just don’t love Him enough. That is the essence of all of the

above cited verses. On Judgment Day it will be to late. Today we have to

take the time to make Him to our only Lord and Savior. Each person has to

do that on his or her own. No church, Pope or other power structure can make

that decision for us. He is not going to accept us if we don’t personally accept

Him first.

He has the authority from God to demand this. (Mt. 28:18)

 

Some may say, “But this is not humanly fair.” They are right. It is not

from any human being, it is the will of God Almighty Himself. He has the

right to tell us what we must do to be saved. Most people today have forgot-

ten who God is. They have forgotten that He is their Creator. That he is holy

and all powerful. Whoever is to busy to obey and worship Him has only him-

self to blame if he doesn’t make it to heaven.

 

        Those who want to be accepted have to love God with their whole soul,

spirit and being. The greatest and first commandment of the Bible is: “ Love

the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all

your mind.” (Mt. 22:37) The heart represents the feelings, the soul is the

spiritual part of the heart and the mind represents the intellect. All three parts

of a man’s or a woman’s being have to have a great love relationship with God.

 

Jesus will welcome those people who seek Him with the love we talked

about at the beginning of this lesson. No person is excluded. We rejoice with

you if you have this kind of love for God and Jesus. Because then you are the

great exception among the people.

 

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “If anyone does not love the

Lord- a curse be on him...” (1. Cor. 16:22a)