Accepting His Love — Jim Cymbala

Christ as the Image of the Invisible God

So I want to tell you this so important thing. Sounds simple. Maybe it's one of the most important secrets to spiritual living. In Colossians chapter one, describing Jesus, it says the son who gives us redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

It says he, the son, is the image of the invisible God. Listen. He, the son, co-equal with the father and the spirit, one God manifesting himself in three persons. The son is the image of the invisible God.

He is the image of the invisible God. Let's learn that verse. Say it with me. He is the image of the invisible God. Another time. He is the image of the invisible God. One last time, but mas fuerte, stronger.

He is the image. Okay, so what theologically that means is this. That God, the father, creator, who's omnipotent, all power, omnipresent, everywhere at once, and has all knowledge, omniscient. He is invisible.

Nobody can behold him with these eyes and with this kind of body. He sent his son into the world, not just to be the savior of the world, that probably foremost. God so loved the world that he gave his son.

He sent his son into the world to die for our sins. We just celebrated that, amen? But he sent him for another reason, because God is incomprehensible. Take, for example, the fact that God is eternal.

None of us can comprehend something that has no beginning or no end. You cannot think of that, because everything in our life has borders of beginning and day, a meal, school experience, everything, beginning and end.

And now God has no beginning and no end. This God is so incomprehensible, and he wanted us to know about him. He sent his son, who is the image. That word in the Greek means not a sloppy replicate or duplicate or a Xerox copy.

He is the exact express image of who God is. He came to earth. He was visible. He lived here for 33 and a half years. Every question we have about God, this is brief, so concentrate, please. Every question we have about God is best answered by looking at Jesus.

Don't look at this verse here in the Old Testament and that verse there and that verse there. Verses taken out of context can be a pretext to make a picture of God, which is wholly skewed, wholly distorted.

It's whack, and God wants us to know what he is like, so he gave us his son. So any question you have about God, what does God feel about mercy? Look at Jesus. What does God feel about women? Look at Jesus.

How do you treat women? How do you treat children? Just any question you have about God. The devil starts to attack your minds. God is this, that is God. Churches sometimes present very skewed pictures of who God is, and they don't point people to Jesus.

Martin Luther, the reformer, celebrating 500 years for the Reformation this year, he said any other picture of God except in the face of Jesus is of the devil. Listen, any picture of God outside of the face of Jesus Christ is of the devil.

The Love of God Revealed in Jesus

You can make God into almost anything. Jesus is our resting place in trying to know who God is, and the first thing, I don't wanna talk long, but I'm not to talk about what I was supposed to. I'm supposed to say this, I believe with all my heart.

The thing we know about God is that, in the face of Jesus, is that God loves you. I know God loves me, and God loves you. Why? Because everywhere Jesus went, he loved the people. He loved Samaritans. He loved Jewish people.

He loved women. He loved men. He loved sinners. He loved godly people. The love is not inspired by you or me. He is love. His love is not conditioned on how well you're doing or how you feel or how you've messed up or how I've messed up.

He loves you. Now, maybe that's the first song, like I told the prayer time at 12 noon today. First song I first learned ever was, Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible. So, he loves all children, all colors, all backgrounds.

He loves us. But let me go to this point, and then I'm done. One of the hardest things in life, spiritual life, is to accept that love and receive it and expect him to bless you despite your unworthiness.

Receiving God’s Love Despite Unworthiness

Because when you become saved, when you become a Christian, God convicts you of your sin first. Otherwise, he's a savior from what? You become aware, wow, I'm undone. I deserve judgment. Oh, thank God he sent Jesus.

But the scars of that, the memories of that can haunt us. Then number two, as Christians, we walk and we make mistakes. And if we're reading our word, we realize, wow, to be like Jesus, it doesn't happen overnight.

How many have found that? How many are still under work, under progress? There's construction hats everywhere around you, right? Me too. So now listen, to wake up every day and to accept that he loves you and to expect that he'll bless you that day despite who you are is easier said than done.

We go, I'm not what I ought to be, granted. But he loves you. He wants to bless you that day. Will you believe it? Will you receive it? Now, some people are so full of themselves, they think God should love them.

Like, hey, I'm the bomb. Of course you love me. But us who have walked with the Lord and we see all our imperfections, we can easily come into a place where the enemy says, you're not worthy, you messed up too much.

I once counseled the woman who had six or seven abortions, even though she was serving the Lord, how the devil would haunt her. You think he loves you after that? My friend, David Berkowitz, son of Sam, who's in prison serving 600 years, he told me and Carol after he got converted, oh, how the enemy would come.

He put nine in the ground as son of Sam, killing randomly, directed by a demonic dog, voices, the whole thing. Now he became a Christian. He loves the word of God. And then he would think because it's hard not to, am I worthy of that love?

How could you love me as an animal, as a beast? How could you love me? But it says he loves us. How many are happy no matter how bad we've been, he still loves us today? Can you lift your hand? Wave it at me so I know.

You know, that's just good to say he loves me today. But I notice that some of us, we don't grow and we don't flourish like we ought to because we don't obey this command. Jesus said, abide in my love even as I abide in my Father's love.

Living With the Consciousness of God’s Love

In other words, live with a consciousness that God loves you. I know you're thinking on the surface, Pastor Simba, don't you have anything deeper to say than God loves you? I mean, what's up with that?

We know that. I'd like to examine everybody's heart during the day, how the devil comes. When we're doing good or we feel good, oh, he loves me. And then when things aren't so good, I don't know if he loves me.

I don't know if I should even pray. Does he love me? Will he listen to me? But I want you to know today, no matter who's rejected you, who molested you, who did whatever, God loves you. I don't care if your family has turned on you.

I don't care if you got involved in church politics and the church turned on you. I don't care who put a knife in your back and turned it once or twice. God loves you. He cherishes you. Can we say amen to that?

He cherishes you. You're the apple of his eye. Listen, I love you, the Bible says, with an everlasting love, God says. The love has no end. It's deep. It's deep, brothers and sisters. And we've prayed and done so many things, but everyone close your eyes.

Rejecting Guilt and Receiving God’s Love

If you're here today and the enemy is just beating you up one side and down the other with not good enough, this failed, you should have, you were once on fire for God and now where are you? Where are you now?

What have you done with your walk with the Lord? God doesn't love you anymore. He's moving on to another person. I want you to know that's a lie. He loves you. You gotta say yes to his love. Say yes to his love today.

Say yes, God, I receive your love and I receive the blessings that your love is, you're gonna pour into my life. I receive them. I'm not gonna hold them back by unbelief because I think I'm unlovable.

We're unlovable to one another sometimes in the natural, but God loves everybody. Anybody here today say, pastor, that word was for me. I'm gonna dismiss in a moment, but please, everyone hold still. That was for me.

Coming Forward to Receive Prayer

Just come out of your seat and come here to the front. I want to stand up here. I want to pray for you. Just uno, just one. I want to pray for you. You're gonna receive God's love. You're not gonna live in guilt, condemnation.

You're not gonna live in discouragement. That is not God's will for your life. You just come up here, right here, my friend. Right here, my friend. Come down from the balcony. I'm gonna wait. We're not going anywhere until we just pray for these people.

God loves you. You're gonna receive that love tonight. Not maybe he loves me, not sometimes he loves me. He loves me. I'm his child. He loves me. He's gonna help me every day that I wake up, every day of my life.

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I'll dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That's someone who knows that God loves them. The Lord is my shepherd. I'm not gonna want anything that I really need.

He's gonna help me. Anybody else? That's it, come up. That's it, come. In the balcony, come on. We're gonna defeat the devil by accepting God's love. If you don't accept God's love, you get isolated, and then the enemy just comes in like a predator lion, just tearing us to pieces.

No, we're gonna rest in God's love. Everybody here in the front, repeat after me, please, but try to say it from your own heart. Close your eyes and just pray with me. Dear God, I know you love me. Because Jesus is the image of the Lord.

A Prayer of Trust in God’s Love and Blessing

The invisible God. I receive your love. I praise you for your love. I receive your blessings. I expect more blessings. Not because of me, but because of you and your great love. No more depression. No more negativity.

No more fear. Because God loves me, and I will serve him all the days of my life and dwell in his house forever. And ever. And we clap to that. Let's everybody celebrate that. Listen, hold on, I'm gonna dismiss, but I just felt something here as I'm praying with this.

Invitation to Salvation and Christian Fellowship

I don't know who you are, and on a Tuesday night, it's a prayer meeting. It's not the time we have strangers or people who are not Christians. But if you're not a Christian and you're receiving Christ tonight as your savior and you need to get baptized, or you need a Bible, or you need a friend, or you need a job, or you need whatever, I want you to stay in the front, and a deacon will talk to you and pray with you, and will get you to fill out a card.

I just wanna help you. Don't want your money. Don't want you to join the church. Doesn't matter. Brooklyn Tabernacle is not the answer. Jesus is the answer. You found the answer in Jesus. Lord, get us home safe.

Closing Prayer for Protection and North Korea

No accidents, no problem, no crime, no anything, God. Please, traveling mercies for all of my brothers and sisters. Thank you for a night. And God, remember, North Korea. Our eyes are on you, Lord, to do something great in North Korea.

We pray it all in Jesus' name. And everyone said. Turn around and hug somebody. Give somebody a handshake. Come on.