I LOVE YOU, O LORD!

STUDY: #862 –CHURCH IN THE HOUSES FROM: JUNE 16 – 22, 2015

TOPIC: “I LOVE YOU, O LORD!” Psalm 18:1 It is said that whoever wants to be wise, to read in the Bible the Proverbs, whoever wants to be a saint, to read Psalms. From this study on Psalm 18 we will learn to love God and our brothers and sisters. Nothing touches the soul more, or despairs a mother, than the cry of his son. And as the cry of a son to his mother's ears is our prayer to the Lord when we lift them to Him in a real clamor. While our prayers are only sighs, our God can keep waiting to work in our favor, but when God sees us fallen or threatened, then JEHOVAH RISES! Therefore we say: ‘Lord, I will love you with all my heart, with all my courage”! The trine (triad) God deserves the most fervent love that can come from our hearts. This wonderful God has delivered Himself, just to say, to His believers. It is God Himself who is the salvation and the portion of His people! Faith is based primarily on GOD HIMSELF; He will be my salvation, and that is only IF I HAVE HIM! And this is already huge: SALVATION. HE, MY GOD, IS MY SALVATION, MY LIFE, MY COMFORT, MY WEALTH, MY HONOR, MY ALL! So we say with the Psalmist, I love you Lord! The psalmist also says in Psalm 73:25 "And earth has nothing I desire besides you." What good are things if God is not with me? We love God and love God's house. David expressed himself with regard to the house of God: "... in my devotion to the temple of my God ..." I Chronicles 29: 3. David's desire was to have a temple for God. David was a cheerful giver because he loved having a temple for the Lord. He wanted to cover the walls of the house of his God with pure gold! David had sought and accumulated the gold of the highest quality, the most prized gold, the purest, and the finest in the world. (Psalm 26: 8 "Lord, I love the house where you live, the place where your glory dwells.") (Psalm 23:

6. "…and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.") No one nor anything will draw me from the most precious thing in my life, the house of my God. Not problems, nor troubles will stop me from dwelling in the house of the Lord. He who leaves the house of God does not know God. An elderly woman who has been deaf for many years is always the first to sit for the time of worship in her church. When asked the reason for her constant and punctual attendance, though she could not hear the sermon, she said: "Although I cannot hear, I come to the house of God because I want to and I want to be found in His ways; and here God gives me sweet thoughts on the biblical text that is shown to me. Another reason is that I am among the best company. I am here in the immediate presence of God and of His saints, my brothers, worthy of the earth. I am not satisfied to serve my God in private; my duty and privilege is to honor Him regularly in public.” What a rebuke these words are to those with healthy ears who often do not come to church, or come in late, to the sacred place of worship! Will they say in worship to God as the psalmist says, and as this old woman who cannot hear: “I love you Jehovah!?” Psalm 27: 4 "One thing I ask of the Lord, that will I seek; That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord...” The man of a single book is eminent (One book: The Bible). The man who has only one maximal ideal succeeds. We need to gather our affections and our loves and all things in our lives as if they were a bunch. That bunch of emotions must be bound and held with only one loop around: The bond of our love for God. God is always first; we must take resolute action to love Him more than everything else. But let us be cautious and watch because love grows cold. Matthew 24:22 "If those days had not been cut short no one would survive; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened.” Love ceases to be for some for many reasons, but we must fight so that our love does not grow cold, not our love for God and not our love for our brothers. Revelation 2: 4 "Yet I have this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” This may mean that the brothers had lost their first enthusiasm. Jeremiah 22: 9 "And the answer will be: Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshiped and served other gods." The prophet Jeremiah spoke of God's people who had left their God. Also, Revelation speaks of the believers of the Ephesian church who had lost all the old enthusiasm for religion. Perhaps what he means is that they had lost the first ardor of love for fellowship, their brotherly love had cooled down. In its early days the members of the church at Ephesus had been joined by a genuine love, but dissent (the lack of agreement or acceptance) arrived. Then, hatred and strife loomed its ugly heads. Some times of negligence, and their hearts were willing to ignite and to separate. The good things were lost. It may be that the heretics, false teachers, had killed the love in them. That is why we need to be vigilant and pray continuously. When the love for God is lost, the church falls into a lack of love for their own loved ones. God leaves, and with Him also leaves the love that only comes from Him. In Ephesians 1:15, the apostle Paul speaks of the importance of love for the saints. We read in Philippians 4: 1 "Therefore, my brothers and sisters, YOU WHOM I LOVE AND LONG FOR..." To love until we are willing to surrender out of love to the brothers our own lives! (1 Thessalonians 2: 8 "We LOVED YOU so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become SO DEAR to us.") (1 Peter 1:22 "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have

sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. ") (1 Peter 2:17 "LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD OF BELIEVERS.”) (I John 3:14 "We know that we have passed from death to life, because we LOVE our brothers. ANYONE WHO DOES NOT LOVE remains in death.") (2 John 1: 5 "I ask that we LOVE ONE ANOTHER"). If we love God, our great God and Savior, we can also love our brothers. We shall love the Lord as first in our lives, and we shall love our brothers, dear companions of the Way, who are our family in the faith. Amen.