Do you want to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength? Of course you do otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. What  if I told you that it is as simple as stopping sinning? That is a hard pill to swallow but before you leave hear me out. 

Our sinning and our loving God are intrinsically related. Like a horse and carriage you can’t have one without the other. That is to say you just can’t have a true love for God until you effectively deal with your sin problems. And oh yeah you can’t get the carriage before the horse. The sin problem has to be dealt with first.

So dealing with our sins is number one on the list of things to do with regard to our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ and with the Father. Yes, our Father in heaven is included in the mix because He loves us intensely too.

You know God (the Father) loves you right? He is not mad at you and don’t think that His justice demands that every sin must be punished, it doesn’t, He can forgive you or anyone else for that matter anytime He wants. The bible says, “mercy triumphs over justice”

Why is it that we feel that we just can’t stop sinning? Why is it we just don’t want to stop sinning? Why is it so dog gone hard to stop? Why is it that we think it is okay to sin a little?

Am I advocating sinless perfection? Well…..no. “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves the the truth is not in us.” 1John says. 1John is an interesting read regarding this subject I suggest you read all 5 chapters and study it a bit.

But let me ask you this, are you currently living in sin or walking in sin or are addicted to some sin habit? Yes? That is what I am talking about and that is what is separating you from God. God knows we are weak and that we will slip up occasionally but living in sin or having a sin habit is a no no and must be dealt with.

You say, yes I know I need to read the bible more and pray more and attend church more and love my dog my wife and my kids more, volunteer,  yada yada yada. Those things are okay in and of themselves and I hardily recommend doing good works but that is starting to sound a lot like works righteousness to me. Do you know anything about living a just and holy life by faith?

The whole of gospel living is summed up in that one fact. “The just shall live by faith” that is gospel living, it is a simple concept but is a bit harder to execute. Actually reading the bible more and praying more is a lot easier, that is why most Christians fall into a “works righteousness” lifestyle.

Here is what happens to many Christians, they read the bible, pray, attend church and love their dog and wife and volunteer and they think they are doing just fine, that is until temptation comes and then they fall flat on their faces. But they think they have a fix for that, pray more, read the bible more volunteer more but the next time temptation comes they fall flat on their faces again. I know I have been there and done that.

Or we compromise and decide to make peace with our sin and just throttle it down somewhat and call it a day. After all if you can’t beat em, join em.

So what is the fix? The next time you are tempted to sin put your trust in Christ to rescue you from that temptation. 

“Is that it?” Yup. “Sounds hard” It is, you are going to go head to toe with the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places and you are going to win if you endure.

Nobody said being a Christian is gonna be easy, especially our Lord himself. I like to say Christianity is a manly religion, ladies can I say that? I think you know what I mean. There are lots of men in the Church who put on a facade of being tough, and in one sense they are! I wouldn’t want to mess with the UFC type. In that sense I think of myself as a weenie. But these same studs when it comes to fighting Satan and his cohorts they cower and cave in, but you will never know it because they are not gonna tell you.

So the manliness that the world admires they are golden but the manliness that pleases God   Almighty they are weenies. If you are such a big man why can’t you put your trust in Christ to rescue you when you are tempted and endure the temptation until deliverance comes?

Your priorities are all screwed up. You can be both if you want, you don’t have to give up your worldly manliness in order to be a man of God. But if I had to choose I will take being a man of God any day of the year. Get your priorities right.

You say, what does this have to do with loving God? Everything. I will explain. For starters as I mentioned at the beginning it is our sin the separates us from having a real and dynamic relationship with Christ and with the Father. Secondly it is the experience of having Jesus Christ the warrior King come down to you from heaven and smash your enemies in the face that is the life changer.

Smashing your spiritual enemies in the face not your physical enemies and suddenly (after some endurance on your part) the temptation goes away and you realize you have just been delivered. Silently but forcefully and thoroughly you have been set free from that bondage and you have (through faith in Christ) obtained the victory.

Rinse and repeat this process several times and you will begin to admire the one who saves you from your sin. You will experience His ability to deliver you from every temptation every time. Though you may stumble occasionally you know that when you do trust in Him he always comes through. You are experiencing the power of God in your life! How great is that? This relationship will melt your heart and you will begin to have strong feelings towards the One who rescues you over and over again. 

BTW as you make a habit of doing this the temptations will become weaker and weaker and fewer and farther apart. You will realize that you are no longer addicted to your sin, you have been set free. Yeah you are going to love it and yeah you are going to love Him because of what He has and what He is doing for you, you will love Him you wont be able to help it.

So to sum up here are the basic bullet points of this message.

1. Our number one desire is to love God with all our hearts
2. Sin imbedded in our lives keeps us from having a real dynamic relationship with God.
3. This sin must be removed and its gonna be a battle
4. We can activate the power of God (who is dwelling within us) by putting our trust in Him when we feel the pull of temptation.
5. We must endure the strong pull of sin and wait until Christ exercises His power and destroys that particular temptation. (This is the hard part)
6. Christ will deliver you and you are going to be amazed. Rinse and repeat every time you are tempted and you will love what He does for you. This will turn into genuine love.

I pray that this message will be helpful in your walk with God. Amen