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3-minute Sermon
 
Sermon >
Title
   Never-changing Heart    
Speaker
   Rev. Jaerock Lee
Bible
   1 Jn 3:18
Date
   2005-03-13



1 John 3:18
"Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."


Texture is "the structure formed by the threads of a fabric or something composed of closely interwoven elements." Fine textured silk and close grained wood is beautiful and expensive. How about the texture of your heart? Since meeting the Lord, has the texture of your heart's love been uniform? When we say we love God, actions and truth must follow to make the confession true. (1 John 3:18)
You should try to live according to the Word of the Lord and love Him with a never-changing truthfulness in both good times and bad times. The forefathers of faith in the Bible had never-changing hearts before God the Father. Their heart for the Father God was still the same.

First, we must look up to God with all our hearts.

I had suffered from incurable diseases for seven years and there remained no hope for my recovery. I was not able to earn a living for my family and was just "nothing" to everybody around me. When I was in a deep valley of despair, God met me, and healed me of all my diseases with His mighty power. He gave me not only a new life but also a new vision that I had not had before. Everything was new and my heart was always overflowing with joy and thanksgiving.
I have been greatly indebted to God and run a race with all my heart to repay His grace searching for what is acceptable and pleasing to God. I have done it just because I loved God, but He was pleased and blessed me with many evidences of His love for me (Proverbs 8:17). That was because my heart was constant toward God and the Lord. If I could divide my heart into a hundred parts, I offered the hundred parts to the Lord in my early Christian days. It is the same today.
Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-38, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." According to this word, I tried to love God to the utmost degree with all my heart, soul, mind, and life.
Here, 'all your heart' does not refer to giving only a portion of our heart but the whole heart, and moreover, it is giving the portion that we cannot give with our own limits. Thus, those who love with all their heart are not stingy or calculating before the Father God according to their circumstances. They always enjoy giving to God and try to accomplish God's will even though it is beyond their own ability.
Suppose your child or parents become seriously ill and can survive only by surgery that costs a big amount of money. You will never give it up but surely prepare the money even if they have to borrow it from somebody. In the same manner, if we truly love God, we must show the deeds of love for Him with all our life.
Here 'all our life' refers to the sacrifice of ourselves for the Lord, not fearing even death. The apostle Paul confessed in Acts 20:24, "However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me--the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace."
Next, to love the Lord with all our mind is to follow our decisions without changing them half way. If we made up our mind to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, and soul when we met Him for the first time, we should love Him in actions and truth with a never-changing same heart, even after a year, 10 years, or even several decades.
For example, in case of giving to the Father, I used to give all I had when I was a new-believer, and even now I give all I have to the Father. It is not that I give some portion of what I have, but even if I do not have anything right now, if it is necessary for the kingdom of God, I ask with faith, and then I give the Father the whole thing I received as the answer.
But although I gave all I had, I did not have debt or difficulties. God the Father considered what I gave to Him with all my heart as faith and He was pleased with it. He blessed me 30, 60, and 100 times.
For example, those who had 100,000 won gave God 100,000 won with faith and received 30 times greater blessings. So now, they received a blessing of 3 million won. If they are asked to give all they have once again, most of them do not obey it. Even if they give to God 1 million won out of it, they console themselves for they are giving to God much more than before.
It is not only about monetary offering but also offering our time to God. I never thought, "I have worked for God's kingdom this much, so I can take a rest now." Even before I was called as a minister, I always wanted to pray for God's kingdom and His righteousness as much as possible, so I often visited a prayer mountain or prayer centers on weekends and holidays.
How about now? Do I sit back and relax since there are many ministers who will take care of the souls and workers who can work for me at my command? Of course not! To accomplish greater things for God the Father, I am giving more time than anybody, not being able to get any sleep almost every night. I hope you will also set every part of your heart for the Father God and love Him with all your heart, mind, soul, and life. Then, the Father God will also love you and bless you when you come in and when you go out (Deuteronomy 28).

Secondly, fully trust God who accomplishes everything as He says.

Forefathers of faith like the apostle Paul and Abraham believed that once God had spoken it would be fulfilled as said in reality (Acts 27:25). They believed that the word of God would be fulfilled even in very difficult situations or trials.
When I look back my whole life in Christ since I was a new-believer, I have always believed the Father God who accomplishes what He says completely without any error. So, even when it seemed very difficult for His word to be fulfilled in reality, I never thought anything outside God's word. I never changed His word according to the reality using my own thoughts like, "Didn't it mean something else?" Even when the reality was hard, I never blurted out words of unbelief. I only confessed with faith and with love for the Father God.
The situation that I had in the beginning of my Christian life was not easy. I had heavy debt due to 7 years of illness and I could not get a good job with a guaranteed good income. Sometimes I had to make ends meet with daily wages from a construction job.
In the meanwhile, I was offered a very good job by my elder sister. She said I would be able to receive a lot of salary, but there was one condition that I had to work on Sunday once or twice a month. I refused, even though I knew that I would have to continue to work in construction, because I had firm faith that I had to keep the Sabbath holy. Also, I believed deep in my heart God's promise to give overflowing blessings to His children who keep His commandments.
As a result of my faith, I received God's blessing and glorified Him. I want you to check whether you confessed, "I love you Lord, I will be faithful," when you were full of the Holy Spirit, but paid more attention to the worldly things when you had difficulties. I hope you completely trust God who accomplishes what He says from a never-changign heart so that you can fully enjoy blessing God has prepared.

Thirdly, we should never give excuses before God the Father.

Suppose someone dear to you whom you love and trust very much, asks something of you. You may just do it without any excuse. Because I loved God with all my heart and trusted Him fully, I never gave an excuse before Him. I never said, "I cannot do this because of this and that. I am too busy to do it." Since I believed the Father fulfills His word completely and works according to our faith, I could never give any excuse saying something is too difficult.
Even this year, the things that our church has to do are really difficult things in human thought: In particular, overseas crusades in two countries where the gospel is not permitted. In fact, they are impossible things in reality. But because I believe in God who achieves His word fully, I never give any excuses or ask for a reason. If we just believe His word, obey it, and put it into action, the Father will take the responsibility for the rest of it.
Then, have you given excuses like, "I could not help decreasing my prayer time since I am too busy with my business and I have not been faithful to God-given duties because of some situations?" This is a proof of not loving the Lord with a never-changing heart and not fully trusting the Lord. Therefore, rather than giving excuses, I hope you will pray, saying, "Help me overcome my unbelief and let me recover my first love for the Lord."

Dear brothers and sisters,
All our heart should be set for God the Father, not only when we are full of the first love for the Lord, but also when the time passes by and things change. We should love God with all our heart. God surely blesses this kind of children.
If your love for the Lord has cooled down, I hope you will restore the first passionate love for the Lord. May you love the Lord with never-changing heart and rely on the Lord with unchanging faith, so that you will be able to enjoy all the blessings before God. For this I pray in the name of the Lord!

 
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