{"id":371,"date":"2015-05-17T23:23:32","date_gmt":"2015-05-17T22:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=371"},"modified":"2015-09-04T00:29:57","modified_gmt":"2015-09-03T23:29:57","slug":"tell-my-people-i-love-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=371","title":{"rendered":"Tell my people I love them"},"content":{"rendered":"

How would you sum up the gospel of Jesus Christ in just three words? I came up with this idea a few years ago \u2013 \u201cthree word gospels.\u201d Just three words which convey some of the good news of Jesus. Here are some of my favourites. God helped me. Lost now found. Darkness now light. Dead now alive. Only by grace. Alive in Christ. Knowing God personally. Christ in you. Love, joy, peace. Fullness of life. Ransomed, healed, restored. Caterpillar into butterfly. Pretty amazing grace! Three word gospels. But I think the best of all is also the simplest. \u201cGod loves you.\u201d It\u2019s that simple. Amazing and incredible as it sounds, \u201cGod loves you.\u201d
\nI have a little plaque on my desk in our garden office. I\u2019ve placed it right where I can see it all the time in every study for the last 25 years. It reminds me of the calling before me as a minister and at the same time of the message we all have to share. It\u2019s not a Bible verse, but instead a verse of a song I learned when I first became a Christian. It reads like this.
\nTell my people I love them.
\nTell my people I care.
\nWhen they feel far away from me,
\nTell my people I\u2019m there.
\nThe simple message at the heart off the gospel. God loves you. God cares about you. And however tough life may be, whatever may be dragging you down or dragging you away from God, God is always there for you! That is God\u2019s message for every one of us today, and every day. God loves us!
\nEphesians 3 14 For this reason I kneel before the Father, 15 from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge\u2014that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
\nGod wants us to know how WIDE His love is. So wide it extends to every human being who has ever lived. God\u2019s love is so wide that it embraces everybody \u2013 even miserable sinners like you and me!
\nGod wants us to know how LONG His love is. From eternity to eternity. We don\u2019t need to worry about God\u2019s love running out one day. Even more than the Energiser Bunny God\u2019s love just keeps on and on and on! Nothing in the present and nothing in the future can ever separate us from God\u2019s love. God has promised \u201cI will never, ever leave you or forsake you.\u201d
\nGod wants us to know that His love is so HIGH that it reaches up to the heavens. God has truly \u201cblessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ.\u201d We may live as strangers on the earth, but we are citizens of heaven.
\nAnd God wants us to know how DEEP His love is. Deep enough to reach down to the worst and most desperate of sinners. And deep enough to reach into the deepest parts of our lives. A Christian friend of ours had a terrible time when her husband abandoned her with two young children. She wrote a book about her experiences and called it, \u201cNo pit too deep\u201d. It is true that there is no pit too deep for God\u2019s love. Whatever the depths we may be trapped in \u2013 God\u2019s love will rescue us!
\nAnd I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you\u2019ll be able to take in with all Christians the extravagant dimensions of Christ\u2019s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God. (Message)
\nThere may be some people asking, How can I know that God loves me? How can I be sure that God really loves even me? Let me give you two ways you can be certain of God\u2019s love,
\nWe know God loves us because of THE BIBLE
\nThere\u2019s an old children\u2019s song:
\nJesus loves me, this I know. For the Bible tells me so.
\nLittle ones, to Him they come. We are weak but He is strong.
\nYes Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.
\nJohn Stott described the Bible as \u201cGod\u2019s love letter to the church.\u201d The Bible teaches us about God\u2019s love. And then also God speaks to our hearts through His word the Bible. The Bible tells us in so many places that God loves us!
\nRomans 8 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
\nJohn 316 \u201cFor God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
\nThe Bible records Jesus\u2019s words of love and it records God\u2019s love shown in actions in Jesus\u2019s ministry and in His death and His glorious resurrection!
\nRomans 5 6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
\nGod loves us enough that He gave His only Son Jesus Christ for us!
\nMY LORD, WHAT LOVE IS THIS That pays so dearly, That I, the guilty one, May go free!
\nAmazing love, O what sacrifice, The Son of God given for me.
\nMy debt He pays, and my death He dies, That I might live!<\/p>\n

1 John 3:1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
\nThe Bible teaches us about God\u2019s love. And then there are some parts of the Bible God uses to speak directly to us, telling us He loves us.
\nJeremiah 29 11 For I know the plans I have for you,\u201d declares the LORD, \u201cplans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
\nI have shared with you before how God used a particular passage in Isaiah 43 to assure me of His love for me at a very challenging and painful time in my life. It was as if those words had been written just for me.
\nIsaiah 43:1 But now, this is what the LORD says – he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel:
\n\u201cFear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
\n2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
\nWhen you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
\n3 For I am the LORD, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
\nI give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead.
\n4 Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you, I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.
\n5 Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
\nThe Bible assures us in so many places just how much God loves us. If you want to know how much God loves you, read the Bible!
\nThen also we know God loves us because of GOD\u2019S ACTIONS in our lives
\nEvery single blessing we ever receive from God is an expression of His love for us.
\nAnswers to prayer \u2013
\nGuidance
\nExperiences of healing
\nTimes we have met with God in worship
\nTimes we have met with God in fellowship with other Christians
\nWhen upon life\u2019s billows you are tempest tossed,
\nWhen you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
\nCount your many blessings, name them one by one,
\nAnd it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.
\n Count your blessings, name them one by one,
\n Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
\n Count your blessings, name them one by one,
\n And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.
\nEvery single instance where God has blessed you is a demonstration of His infinite love for you.
\nAll the material blessings, all things given to us so richly to enjoy. And all the spiritual blessings as we thought about on our Gift Day last month.
\nEphesians 1 3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will\u2014 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God\u2019s grace 8 that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.
\nEVERY Spiritual blessing in Christ! That\u2019s how much God loves us!
\nTheres\u2019s a lovely story told by Peter Kreeft about a family who were emigrating from Europe to America. They were so poor that they had to spend almost all their money on the ticket. What they had left over for food was only enough to buy bread and cheese. So for the first couple of days all they ate was cheese sandwiches. Then the little boy said to his father, \u201cDaddy, please, can I have money for an ice cream cone, just this once? I hate cheese sandwiches! If I don\u2019t eat anything different before we get to America, I\u2019m going to die!\u201d His father said, \u201cWe\u2019ve almost no money left. And cheese sandwiches will keep you alive till we get to New York. Once we\u2019re there, there are golden streets and everybody\u2019s rich.\u201d The boy wouldn\u2019t stop asking, so his father finally gave him his last bits of change for an ice cream cone and waited. The boy didn\u2019t come back for two hours. His father was getting worried when the boy finally came back with a fat tummy and a smile on his face.
\n\u201cDid you get your ice cream cone?\u201d the Father asked.
\n\u201cOh, sure, Dad. And then another one, and then a steak, and then apple pie.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat? You bought all that with the little bit of money I gave you?\u201d
\n \u201cOh, no, Dad,\u201d The boy replied.\u201d It\u2019s free. It all comes with the ticket!\u201d
\nPeople say that being a Christian is all pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die. But that\u2019s not right at all. God loves us so much and His blessings begin right here and now. It\u2019s cake on your plate while you wait as well! And every blessing God pours out on us is an expression of His immense love for us all!
\nThere is a song which sums up for me just how wonderful God\u2019s love is for us. I first heard it in 1970s but now I find it used as a meditation in the Celtic prayer book produced by the Northumbria Community. Hillclimbing for beginners – Water into Wine Band
\nSitting in the darkness of my mind I look but I can\u2019t find
\nA single thing on which I can depend, if only I could find a friend
\nWho shares the pain I bear, and then together we could dare
\nTo climb a hill I cannot see, in silence of eternity.
\nNot waiting for you, climbing up the hill I fall and stumble, still Your hand upon my shoulders is so strong, And every boulder sings a song of love, And high above Your laughter pulls me on and on, And ever since the morning there has been no right or wrong, but love.
\nGod loves us. The Bible tells us so. And every experience we have had of God in our lives is a demonstration of His love for us. God wants every one of us this morning to know just how much He loves us!
\nTell my people I love them.
\nTell my people I care.
\nWhen they feel far away from me,
\nTell my people I\u2019m there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How would you sum up the gospel of Jesus Christ in just three words? I came up with this idea a few years ago…<\/span><\/p>\n

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