If anyone loves the world,
the love of the Father is not in him. 1
John 2:15
As someone who preaches
strongly on the gospel of grace, one of the most common questions I get asked
is this:
Pastor Prince, are you
saying that everything is just by grace and we can live any way we want with
total disregard for God? Are you saying that we don’t have to serve Him?
Well, ask yourself this:
When someone genuinely encounters the Father’s love, favor, and blessings in a
way that is totally undeserving, how do you think he or she will live?
Take a moment to put
yourself in the shoes of the prodigal son in Luke 15. After all the wrongs you
have committed against your father, he gives you a lavish reception filled with
hugs and kisses. You just went from starving to being clothed with a fresh,
clean robe and wearing the ring of your father, authorizing you to make
payments in his name. And as if that is not enough, your father has invited all
the neighbors, killed a choice calf, and they are having a homecoming barbecue
party with music and dancing in your honor.
Now, does this make you
want to rebel against your father again by leaving home and going back to the
filthy pigpen, wallowing in the mud and feeding on things that will never
satisfy you? Of course not!
There is a great
misunderstanding that believers who struggle with and indulge in sin, and who
are still in love with the world, do so because they don’t love God enough.
Believers are told to love God more, thinking that if people love God more,
they would love sin and the world less.
But God opened my eyes one
day to the real reason believers are still entangled with sin and the world.
I’ve never heard anyone preach this before, so this is fresh from heaven. The
apostle John tells us, “If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is
not in him” (1 John 2:15). Notice that it is the love of the
Father, not the love for the Father. So people who love the
world and are trapped by worldly pursuits are actually people who don’t know or
don’t believe in their hearts the love of the Father for them.
Rather than messages of
“You’ve got to love God more!” what we really need is more preaching that is
all about the love of the Father. It will never be about our
love for Him, but His love for us.
Beloved, when people come
to truly know and believe the Father’s love for them and have it burning in
their hearts, they will no longer want to go out and live like the devil. There
is just something powerfully transformative about grace. That’s what right
believing in the Father’s love brings. If you’ve tasted and savored grace from
your heavenly Father, you never want to live in the wilderness of sin, away
from the Father’s embrace, ever again. (Article & Picture; courtesy of Joseph Prince Ministries used with kin permission).
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