Return to Your First Love

Our souls need food—just as much as our bodies—but soul food can only come from the Bible. The good news is that the more we eat of it, the healthier we’ll be.

The following program is sponsored by generous friends and partners of real life.
Listen, I’ve learned this.
Maybe you’re the same, but I don’t need anyone to tell me how messed up I am or when I have the wrong thought, I am so able to beat myself to a pulp.
Thank God for his grace and mercy. Return to your first love. That is the challenge.
Stay tuned for this passionate message from Jack hips.
Success doesn’t happen by accident, whether it’s at the gym on the court, in the workplace or at home, discipline is needed to achieve your full potential in his time tested book, disciplines of a Godly man are Kent Hughes examines the various aspects of life that require time effort and the intentional decision to go above and beyond.
From marriage to fatherhood to integrity, prayer, friendship, and perseverance.
This compelling and insightful book shines a light into every corner of the Christian man’s life.
Buy a copy for yourself or give this excellent resource to a man in your life to help him succeed.
Spiritually. Disciplines of a Godly man will be mailed to you when you support the Ministry of Real Life with Jack Hibbs this month.
Go to Jack Hibbs dot com or call 877 triple 7 23 46 to get your copy order. Now.
Well, I would assume that for most of us that when we were young and we had that crush on that boy or that girl, remember when they went from one day they had cooties to the next day.
It’s like her hair smelled different or maybe he walked by and his perspiration all of a sudden smelled like, I don’t know, cologne and your life was changed.
Something was going on. You were developing and you were growing up and there’s a lot of stuff happening to whereby your life has changed, your mind has changed and your conduct has changed what’s happening when we wake up to uh these first elements or steps of romance and of excitement.
We’re thrilled and for those of you who remember, I mean, I’m older now, but I can remember back, you know, with your first girlfriend where you’re on the phone and you say to them, uh, you know, you hang up, it’s late.
No, no, no, you hang up. No, no, you hang up and what’s going on.
You are out of your mind crazy in love, or at least you feel like you are right.
But as you grow up, the power of that becomes more real.
And so today’s message is going to challenge you. I pray to get back to a deep love for Jesus.
Call it an invisible affair with the eternal God.
The Bible says that you and I need to go back, go back to the early days of our first love and that’s how God wants to relate to you.
So grab your Bibles and let’s get into what God has to say to us about loving him as he loves us.
Romans chapter nine verse six.
Romans 96 is for, they are not all Israel who are of Israel, nor are they all Children?
Because they are the seed of Abraham. Why? What’s He saying? Love. Do you love God?
Not by conversation, not by whoever you might be with b you love God in the invisible.
First. John chapter two verse 18.
These are all introductory verses first John 2, 18 little Children, John’s writing to believers.
It is the last hour and as you have heard, the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrist have come by which we know that it is the last hour they went out from us but they were not of us.
For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest or known that some of them that none of them excuse me were of us.
What’s, what’s going on every situation and time our love is being tested and with all that’s going on in life and all the shaking that’s taking on taking in our world.
Our love is being tested. Is it not some of you have come to, some of you have fallen in love with Jesus since the COVID crisis, for example, or other things you’ve come to know Jesus.
Others have left, drifted away. I’m not saying left this building.
I’m saying left off from faith, maintaining an invisible love has nothing to do with your external fleshly conduct.
Nor as Paul would say, circumcision, it’s a tremendously powerful argument that he’s making.
And so church looked by way of review.
Number one, we saw that when we’re asking the question regarding how do we get acceptable before God, when enough is not enough, we asked the question how much is needed.
and we looked at verse 25 and he’s talking about circumcision is profitable.
It works only if you keep the law and immediately everyone should have thrown their hands up in frustration, right?
So how much is needed? The answer is you ain’t got it.
You don’t have enough to provide what’s needed to be acceptable to God by your good works by even the keeping of the law, which is a fallacy because the law is given as we saw to show you that you cannot get to heaven by being good enough.
The law is that black and white unit with the red light on top the law is that sign that says stop or the laws that sign that says yield or whatever it might be.
It’s a posted law, but you’ll never find a sign posted in the Bible, do this and you’ll be saved all of it.
And I say all of it by singular, all of it leading to one thing, put your faith in Christ and in him alone and salvation is accomplished.
The just shall live by faith. You want to experience this liberty and freedom, write this down.
Stop with the scorecard. Stop with the self imposed religion that you and I have the tendency to put upon ourselves.
Satan will seek to do that even in the believer’s life, he will seek to impose upon you the embracing of you doing things, saying things, giving things whatever it might be.
And you have this invisible scorecard, this this thing in your head, this tally, this spreadsheet that’s keeping record and we want to watch out for that.
Look at verse 28. This is shocking and this is why are you guys with me?
You guys, this is why versus 28 29 drive our Jewish friends crazy.
If a gentile was saying it, it would not make a blip on the radar but because Paul the apostle says it who even to this day, no, Jew can live up to his Jewishness.
He was amazing. He winds up taking all of his personal achievements in his religion and he throws it under the bus where it belongs.
And these two verses shocked the world verse 28 for he is not a jew who is one outwardly nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.
Now, you see why when you’ve got a bunch of people trusting in that very act that it is their mark, their seal of salvation.
This guy comes along 2000 years ago, insist this, the guy is a lunatic.
You’ll literally read that.
There are people today saying he’s, he was touched, he was something wrong and yet everything that Paul points out, he’s got scripture to back it up.
Well, no hero following Paul. We don’t worship Paul.
I’m saying this because I know what I’m talking about right now because the Jews will say they worship Paul.
No, we don’t. Paul was the center just like me, just like us, just like you the critic.
No, when he’s announcing this, he says something church that I just wrote in my own notes to remind myself that for Paul to make this judgment call the world would say today many in the church today would say shame on him, shame on Paul watch.
He says for he is not a Jew.
Well, who made Paul the, who made him the judge watch this.
This is a big, this is a big deal. Seems like Paul’s keeping score.
He’s not keeping score. He’s tearing down the scoreboard, he’s destroying the whole thing about us equating ourselves to a standard.
He makes this announcement. You want to talk about a Jew?
And it’s amazing because do you guys remember last week? What the word Jew means?
The word Jew comes from Judah, from the tribe from Judah, one of the sons.
It means to praise God. It means to be appraiser of the Lord God Almighty.
Remember I said, if your name is Judy, it means that your name is appraiser.
So Paul says a person who’s not a worshiper of God cannot claim to be a Jew, but a person who is a worshiper of God in spirit, in reality, because its internal is in fact a Jew according to whose standard is that according to Paul’s standards, no, according to God’s standards, Judas was a Jew.
Judas even had a name that was rooted in praise and yet the Bible tells us that Judas missed heaven altogether.
Think of it. Are you appraiser? Are you a worshiper for? He is not a Jew.
So he makes this incredible judgment call, who is one outwardly?
So look at this, the equivalent today for us would be for me to be watch.
So, so unloving, so critical. So mean, what gives him the right?
If I were to say to you, I’ve observed your life or you’re saying it to me, I’ve observed your life and I’ve come to the conclusion, you’re not a Christian In this day and age.
I say right now, what Paul said 2000 years ago and the room goes quiet because number one, we have somehow fallen into this world of ours that, that’s unacceptable to look at someone’s life and evaluate them and come to the conclusion.
You’re not a Christian. Now, listen, we should be very careful about what I’m saying because we cannot pass that judgment.
However, Jesus said, you’ll know them by their fruit.
And he goes so far to say that there are those whose lives, actually, they’re not sheep of the fold.
They’re actually wolves on the attack and they’re in and out of the church.
So today and man, I know this, my confidence level of this going over is like at one and it’s this, we need to walk away from this message today knowing that God wants all of us who name his name to have a love relationship with him.
And when that invisible love affair with God is underway, it manifest that invisible love visibly how we live our lives.
You should be able to move into my home today.
You should be able to park out in front of my house.
You should be able to observe me month in and month out and come to the conclusion.
You follow God, but we don’t think like this anymore.
And it’s wrong of us because we’ve made Christianity a western thing.
I’ve told you before. In the Middle Eastern world, you eat together.
You’re, you’re rarely ever alone. Everybody’s together, you know your neighbors, you know, you’re, everybody’s talking, everybody’s eating, everybody’s living life.
It’s all public and the western world, we’ve got a private church going on.
And I want you to know God’s Bible doesn’t know anything about that.
That if I were to say today, this person is teaching false doctrine, this person is living a false life, this person is living or doing things that are antithesis to the word of God.
And then they claim to be a Christian.
I could say they’re not a Christian who claims their Christian unless they’re a worshiper of God.
And you do know what I’m talking about, right? We’re not talking about.
Well, I wish you go, I go to church and I sing, I’m not talking about singing, forget singing.
A worshiper is eating, breathing, moving, talking, attitude, imagination passion, right? That honors God.
And Paul would say you, you who gentiles uncircumcised God attributes to you the purity, the righteousness that circumcision represents.
It’s clear to God that your heart has been circumcised, that you have salvation.
It’s remarkable And there’s no, there’s no scorekeeping.
Now I’m gonna move on from this, but I have to say this.
1st Christians, it’s time for you to stop beating yourself up for your sin or shortcoming of the day.
So tomorrow’s Monday and you start a new day. That’s why the Bible says there’s new, what?
Every morning, there’s new mercies every morning. Why?
Because you need them and here’s the deal you get up and you live tomorrow and your desire, the believers desire, you judge yourself right now.
This is not your desire. The true desire is I am gonna get up today being Monday and I’m gonna live my life for God.
Lord. Open up doors of opportunity for me to share. Give me the boldness because I’m just scared to death.
Lord, you just do this thing. You do this thing called Christianity in and through me, here we go.
God and away we go. And as you failed during the day, You get 20 minutes after praying the prayer, somebody cuts you off on the freeway and you, and you say, well, you bum and then God says, I thought we were gonna have a good day today.
You’re right. Lord. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. That is so wrong, forgiven. Now, move on.
Did you hear what I just said?
I, with what I just said, the legal ist right now is saying, mm that can’t be true.
That’s too good. That’s why it’s called the Gospel.
Listen, because the true circumcision of the heart is a constant living moment.
There’s no longer keeping a score.
When the Holy Spirit says to you, you shouldn’t have thought that thought a moment ago.
God, you’re right. You did see me on the inward side and you do know me and that was so wrong and I hated it.
And even while I was thinking, the thought I knew, I should have been thinking it.
Lord will you please forgive me?
And the Bible says in 1st John 19 that he’s faithful to forgive you of your sin.
If you live like that, you will live a life that’s called Christian.
If you do that, you will be called a believer.
If you do that, you will know perpetual revival because it’s an ongoing moment by moment experience and you’re no longer stacking up points against yourself.
Because listen, I’ve learned this. Maybe you’re the same, but I don’t need anyone to tell me how messed up I am or when I have the wrong thought, I am so able to beat myself to a pulp.
Thank God for his grace and mercy.
Because I, oh if you only knew when I first became a Christian, I was the most disgusting legal ist you’d ever meet in your life.
I was horrible to be around.
So legalistic and boy did God whittle me down to show me what I really was.
And then you throw yourself upon his mercy and his grace and mercy and grace is not a ticket to go sind.
Sie. The unbeliever thinks that the religious person says, well, that’s cool.
I’ll just keep sitting asking God to forgive me and just keep sinning.
I can have my cake and eat it too. Heaven and all of this.
No, The Believer doesn’t think like that no more scorekeeping.
The second thing we see in verse 29 is how can you and I can experience this freedom for ourselves where we’re really set free from.
What is enough is that you and I start right now with his grace, the grace of God, the grace of God, an enemy, the sworn enemy of legalism, grace, for example, I mean, this with all due respect and with affection, but I mean this directly one of the most law abiding and publicly righteous person you will experience in life is a Mormon.
Good people love America, love.
What’s right now behind all that is honestly, please, please, you know, behind that is a brutal world of legalism.
It’s so hard and they will say things like this.
Oh, so wait, so, so you’re a Christian. Yes. So you’re so you’re a grace.
Er That’s the word that they’ll among themselves. They’ll never tell you this at your door.
I know a little bit inside stuff. My family, you still live in Utah. I did not, they did.
They, my brother still does, but the Christian who’s, who says something like this? God’s grace.
God’s grace is powerful. God’s grace is encouraging God’s grace is ever present.
A good Mormon will say, I feel sorry for you because you know you’re landing on this grace, you’re a grace.
Er You think that He forgives you like that, you think that God makes it easy for you by going to him like that and they deny that liberty.
That’s available to them through Jesus Christ. Listen, the one true Jesus Christ, the Jesus of the Bible.
And Jesus said, even with the Pharisees, you lay burdens upon people’s lives who you Pharisees.
You priest. You said uses and Pharisees, you don’t even bear the load of those things yourself.
But you demand that your followers still. Jesus said, how dare you?
Wow, Billy Graham said, I can live any kind of life I choose to live as a believer.
Listen, I’m gonna pause for effect.
Billy Graham said, I can live any kind of life I want as a believer.
So you think about that one more, I can choose to live any life I wanna live as a believer.
And he said as a believer of my choice is to live for Christ.
Isn’t that awesome? So when we think about our relationship with God, when we think about being personal, why would that be a stretch for our imagination?
Why would that be a stretch for our faith or religious experience when you and I deal with the most precious people in our lives relation?
Aly, do we not if it’s a relationship between your husband and wife or your kids or your parents, your friends?
Is it not personal? Is it not as the word would have it face to face?
This is what God wants and so many millions of us practice religion and when it’s over, you know that moment on Sunday times up 60 minutes and away we go.
Imagine if you had a marriage like that, imagine if you had a relationship like that, there’s a high probability you would either a, want your marriage fixed or b you’re not going to be dating this person any longer.
This is dead. And, oh, by the way, when you have to ask someone, do you love me?
That is a sad indicator.
It’s also a great warning because maybe in a relationship, one person needs to step up and express themselves about how they love and how they desire.
Well, the great thing about God is that God has spoken up. He has revealed to us his desire.
It’s called the Bible and he’s written to us his love letter.
Maybe you’ve never thought about the scripture being a love letter, but that’s exactly what it is from cover to cover.
It’s all about God’s redemptive work to bring you and I back, not into church, not into religion but into a personal relationship with Almighty God.
The very one who invented relationship to begin with. Adam and Eve walked with God face to face.
He wants you to do the same.
Listen, we have more teachings, more scripture for you to study at Jack Gibbs dot com.
And we look forward to having you go there and check out what more we have to cause you to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.
Thanks for watching. Success doesn’t happen by accident, whether it’s at the gym on the court in the workplace or at home, discipline is needed to achieve your full potential.
In his time tested book. Disciplines of a Godly Man are Kent Hughes examines the various aspects of life that require time effort and the intentional decision to go above and beyond.
From marriage to fatherhood, to integrity, prayer, friendship, and perseverance.
This compelling and insightful book shines a light into every corner of the Christian man’s life.
Buy a copy for yourself or give this excellent resource to a man in your life to help him succeed.
Spiritually, disciplines of a Godly man will be mailed to you when you support the Ministry of Real Life with Jack Hibbs.
This month, go to Jack Hibbs dot com or call 877 triple 7 23 46 to get your copy order.
Now, welcome to Real Life Radio with Jack Hibbs.
God’s word never will return. Void God’s word is spirit, its power and it has its effect.
Mhm.
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The preceding program was sponsored by generous friends and partners of real life.