Understanding God's Heart

These are quotes from sermons preached at RLCF Church in August 2010. Click here to listen to these sermons

• God overlooks the years in which we were ignorant of His ways. But He is now calling us to turn around and obey Him (Acts 17:30).

• Obedience to God is as much of a burden as wings are to a bird (Mt.11:30, Isa.40:31).

• Jesus is our dictionary. When we want to know the spiritual meaning of a particular word in the New Testament, we must look it up in His life.

• The Spirit could come into men, only after Jesus was glorified (Jn.7:39), because no man's heart could be clean, until Jesus had shed His blood.

• Grace begins with forgiving our sins. But it goes on from there to free us from sin's power and to make us like Christ - progressively.

• A crow (fleshly Christian) will love dead carcasses, no matter how much he is educated. A dove (spiritual Christian) however, does not need to be taught or exhorted to avoid carcasses (Gen.8:7-9).

• Christians don't need significance, security, or success. They only need the Holy Spirit!

• God is looking for a pure sacrifice in every place in this world (Mal.1:11).

• Seeking appreciation from others when we pray in public, is like expressing your love to your husband in public, in order to be appreciated by others. Only "actors" (Greek: "hypocrites") do that (Matt.6:5)!

• A legalist who has been a Christian for many years is like an adult who still needs a nanny (Gal.3:24-26).

• When you prophesy, it must be according to the level of your faith (Rom.12:6), which is the level of your life (Rom.1:17).

• The ones who will have influence in Babylon are those who are determined never to defile themselves (Dan.1:8).

• A legalist who obeys God's commands and then judges others who don't do things exactly like he does them, is like one who cooks a delicious chicken curry and then throws a dead lizard into it.

• If you want to be great in God's kingdom: (1) Keep and teach even the least of God's commandments (Matt.5:19); and (2) humble yourself like a little child (Matt. 18:4). Then God will look upon you with favor (Isa.66:2).

• It is the easiest thing of all for God to bless someone. But it is the most difficult thing of all for Him to keep him humble after blessing him.

• God doesn't want "volunteers" to serve Him. He wants disciples who have forsaken everything (Jn.6:11,12)

• God is in the production business. He calls us to be only in the distribution business.

• Babylon is the "foolish man's" house -- hearing God's words and not doing them. "Great will be its fall" (Matt.7:26-27 and Rev.18:2).

• The mark of the antichrist can be taken on the forehead (publicly) or on the hand (secretly). But the mark of the Lamb can be taken only on the forehead (Rev.13:16 - 14:1).

• The only ones who can learn the new song are those who have been "redeemed from the earth" (Rev.14:3) -- those whose mind is set on things above and not on the earth.

• The reason for the lack of joy in the lives of many Christians is that they don't really hate sin (Heb.1:9). The more we hate sin, the more we will have "fullness of joy" (Psa.16:11).

• If you have only this one verse in the Bible with you, you can live your whole life by it: "Have the same attitude in you which was in Christ Jesus" (Phil.2:5).

• I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand or to stand up. I'm going to ask you to sit down and count the cost: Is it worth it to follow such a Lord? Are you going to continue your life of hypocrisy and pretense and religiosity and legalistic rules? Or are you going to throw it all away and say, "Lord Jesus, I want to follow You all the days of my life. I'm your disciple"?

• Two big differences between the world and the church are: (1) The people of the world have no reverence for God (Rom.3:18); and (2) the people of the world seek after their own interests (Phil.2:21).

• We must recognize that we were created primarily to bring pleasure to God and not to seek after pleasure ourselves (Rev.4:11).

• Trying to learn the wisdom of God without learning to reverence God first is like trying to learn Science or Geography without first learning to read (Pro.9:10).

• What the Bible says about Heaven and Hell is more reliable than what any man says about them (Lk.16:31).

• You cannot play the fool with God and get away with it, any more than you can play the fool with electricity and escape injury or death.

• You cannot worship God if you are not dressed in holiness (Psa.29:2).

• Even Jesus' prayers were heard only because of His reverence for God (Heb.5:7).