Love like a Garment - John Humenik Ministries Weekly Podcast

Good evening, everyone. I hope you're having a wonderful Black Friday today. Hopefully you didn't get a chance to go out and do too much shopping or anything exciting like that. But either way, you're here with me tonight, and I'm excited to have you here. Today we're going to be talking about love is like a garment, and really want to talk about the power of love and how it looks like you're actually wearing it. All the time. And let's start, let's jump right into the scriptures and talk about how this can happen. Colossians chapter 3, verses 14: And all of, and all of these other virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. And what a beautiful verse, because for a long time I really never understood the definition or really the meaning of love. And as we go through this teaching today, we're going to explore in depth the meaning of love Where it came from. It's far more complicated than you realize because even in the Greek there was actually eight different words that describe it in the sense of like how it was actually used contextually, and the most powerful and the highest form of that is agape love. So let's go on this beautiful journey. I'm excited that you're here, and let's go ahead and get talking. So one of the most important things to understand about love is that it is actually the anchor of the fruit of the spirit. One of the things I never even realized for a long time was this. Fruit of the Spirit is not fruits of the Spirit. It's not plural; it's singular. And when you actually read, when you read about it in Galatians and throughout other books in the Bible, what you'll notice is is that fruit is actually the anchor point. And what it means is is that all the others—joy, peace, kindness, patience, faithfulness, self-control, gentleness, and goodness—are all actually point back to love, which actually means is love encapsulates all of these things. And it's just a beautiful vision that actually the fruit of the Spirit is actually love and comes out in these different virtues, these aspects that are part of your life. And that's what makes it amazing, because what it does is it shows the real power of what love is like. And so that's a great kicking off. Let's go ahead into the most legendary verse, the most legendary verse In the entire Bible, John 3:16. So for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. This is the the true definition of love: is that God loved the world so much, and that meaning the people, that he is willing to give up his Son to die in our place. And when you really start to understand the meaning of this, what happens is is you. First realized that back in pre-eternity, basically before Genesis 1:1, what you see is, is that in 1 Peter chapter 1:20 talks about this. Because think about it from this perspective: imagine that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit had a meeting of sorts. Think of it from that perspective. And in that discussion, they're like, we're going to have a family. Let's go ahead and let's create humanity. We're going to have to create an earth and all of the different things. But in order for it to actually be a real family, it all has to come down to free will, and we have to be able to give them the opportunity to choose to love us. Well, guess what? When you choose to love us, that also means that you're going to choose to reject us. And so now God has the situation where he knows in advance That the moment he puts Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, that ultimately at some point in time, which we don't know— there's some indeterminate amount of time from the 7th day of creation when everything was considered very good, then to Genesis 3, which then comes the fall. So we don't know if that was a week, we don't know if that was 100 years, but we know that it happened, and God knew that in advance. And so What Peter reveals to us in this chapter, 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 20, it says, he, Jesus, was chosen before the creation of the world but was revealed to us in these last times for our sake. So what it means is they had that meeting, and they knew once they had that meeting that Jesus was going to have to come and die for our sins. God's not reacting to our mistakes. He already knows the sins, the mistakes, before we make them. And so when you start to understand what that truly means, is now what happens is that Jesus was always going to be the sacrifice. So when you look back at John 3:16, God said, I love the world so much that I'm willing to transfer the sin of the world onto my Son in order for my Son to transfer his righteousness upon all of us. That was the definition of love. And what we start to see throughout scripture is that love starts to become more than just an emotion, but what rather becomes— it starts to become an action of over and over again. And so when you look at the fruit of the Spirit and you start to see joy, peace, kindness, patience, faithfulness, all these other beautiful fruits, you'll notice that there are attributes of a posture of your heart as well as the things you're actually doing. And it really is important to start to understand that's how love becomes a garment that we wear, because every single thing people see us do now becomes our identity. And so not necessarily any different than what we would say sons and daughters of the Most High God, but rather what it shows is that our identity is rooted in love. And we see that further whenever we go to the scriptures and we dive into Jeremiah 1:5, and God says, before I formed you— he's talking to Jeremiah— I knew you before you were born. I set you apart. But we know that verse. We know God's a respecter of no people. And so when God is saying that verse, he can say that directly to you. And think about it. Let me reread that verse again. Before I formed You in the womb, I knew you before you were born. I set you apart. So now God is saying that I loved you. I loved you at the creation of the world. I loved you to send my Son to die in your place. And now I love you even in this state, wherever you're at in your life, whether you are walking with Christ faithfully or you're watching this video and you're like, I don't know who this guy is, but I'm interested in it and I'm trying to understand more about what this love thing is about. And so when you see this continuing to develop in the scriptures, we go further. Let's go a little further. John chapter 17, verse 2. Father, I want you— I want those you have given to me to be where I am and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. Here's that word again, loved. And so what we see here is, is that this is one of the things that when you start to understand the Trinity, in order for love to be real, there has to be at least 2 persons. So if God is love and he existed before everything came into existence, how could he love unless there were other persons to love? And so this is in a way actually proof of the Trinity, because now you start to see is that there was the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They were pre-existent, they always were around, and now you start to see that they loved each other. And then that love birthed creation and then birthed us. And so he loves us, and we know that God loves us with inexpressible amount of words, to the point where we see the one verse talks about that, where there are more, um, there are more feelings for God, words for God, that For us than there are grains of sand in all the sea. When you start to understand how many grains of sand are just in like a basically a square yard, or even a square mile, and then you start to think about every single grain of sand on every single beach, on every single ocean across the earth, God has more beautiful words to think about you. Then that puts it in the next level. He truly loved us, which is why he was willing to give up Jesus to die in our place. Kind of the bedrock and the foundation of everything that we believe. But even Jesus willingly went to the cross, knowing that he would be the path that would redeem all of us to heaven. Because there is no way that any form of works righteousness, anything that we could do as Christians, could get us close to the Father. Because the fact of the matter is, is there's all. Always has to be some form of punishment for sin. And that's the essence of the cross, is Jesus took all of that punishment. He bore all of our illnesses, all of our sickness, all of our diseases, all of our sins in his body. And then God poured the wrath of the cup of God on him while he was on the cross, so that all the punishment that we deserved He took and exchanged his perfect righteousness to us. So when God looks at us and he sees us, he doesn't see our mistakes. He doesn't see our sins. He sees Jesus's righteousness. This is why when you talk to religious people and they're saying, "Oh, you have to make sure that you ask for forgiveness every single day, because if you don't, then there's going to be some form of punishment." Aka, you'll hear things like purgatory or some other false doctrine like that. But what that does is all it does is water down. Jesus's blood on a cross, because God's love trumps all of that, because Jesus's sacrifice is and will always be perfect. And so that's the essence of that love. But then let's go even deeper. Let's go into 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 9, and it continues the love story. He said, he has saved us and called us to a holy life. Not because of anything that we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace. The grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. And so when we start to understand that God's grace, the ability for us to operate in blessings, which is you know one aspect of grace, is present at the dawn of time. Mercy is present at the dawn of time. God's love through action, through emotion, is present at the dawn of time because he knows who we are. He loves all of us. This is why Jesus said, love your enemies. He never said in any scripture, love the evil one. No, the evil one is our enemy. He talked about human beings. Every single human being has a purpose on earth. has a goal for God for them in their life. There, there's a vision, there is an opportunity, there's blessings and anointings and all these beautiful things that God has put forth for that individual. And so you might be the one person that unlocks the door that allows them to go from the gates of hell to the gates of heaven. That's why it's so important. To love your enemies. Look at a perfect example. Here we have a situation where the martyr Stephen—at the time, he's not being martyred, but he's in the process. Acts seven, and they're stoning him to death, and all of the religious leaders are there. They're screaming at the top of their lungs. They're covering their ears, and they're killing him. And so, who else was there? Well, Saul of Tardis. And so, Stephen says. Forgive them. And so in that moment, he puts the blessing on Saul of Tarsus, his enemy who literally condoned his death, the same person who went and persecuted the church. That blessing became a straight line to Paul's— who ultimately Saul to Paul— his conversion on the road to Damascus. And then what happens is Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles and establishes the church. throughout all the nations. It's built on him. And so now you think about the importance of love, because Stephen had this moment where he could have easily condemned all of the religious folks. He could have condemned Saul. He could have condemned anyone he wanted. Instead, he said, forgive them. This is reminiscent of Jesus doing this on the cross. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. This is so important to understand because Jesus loves everyone. He loved the Roman soldiers that put the nails through his hands or wrists, the same ones that put it through his feet, the same ones that whipped him, that put the crown of thorns on, the religious leaders in the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees All of them, Sadducees, every one of them, you name it, even Pontius Pilate. Jesus loved him. Why? Because Jesus knew Pontius Pilate before he was born. He wanted Pontius Pilate to live a life that was righteous and faithful and be with him forever. That's the essence of love. And through the expression of love, we start to see this whole story come out. And you'll even notice that even in the Bible. That it really becomes a love story. That's what you hear so often. The Bible is a love story written to you, and it is all of God's heart and all of God's expressions that he can describe to us in this side of eternity to be able to show how much he loves you. That's the value that God puts on you. That's what he puts on all of us. That's the same value he put on his son's life. And so when we start to take into consideration the power of love and how you can start to wear that as a garment everywhere you go, the words that come out of your mouth, the facial expressions you have, the warm smile, your actions, the things that you give up, the opportunity, whether that's your time or money or whatever that may be, that's all expressions of love. Because true love casts out fear. It casts out all these things that are negative because love pushes back on the very things that the devil wants to entrench in your life. So now that we've talked about love as a garment, well, what is really love? And is it really emotion? Is it something else? Well, let's go to the standard because in the Bible 1 Corinthians chapter 13 clearly explains what love really is, and it says— and starts in verse 4 and then hops over to verse 6— it says, love is patient, love is kind, love rejoices with the truth, it always protects, it always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. So now let's take this back. Let's rewind this a little bit. And unwinded. What does that mean? Well, first, remember, the fruit of the Spirit are all these things. We have peace, joy, kindness, faithfulness, patience, self-control, goodness. And so you have these attributes, and gentleness. And so now what you start to see is Paul is describing, well, what is actually love? Well, first is patience. One of the biggest things that you can do, whether you're a parent or whether you're a teacher, an older sibling, a younger sibling, it doesn't matter, a friend, a husband or a wife, is patience. Because God ultimately shows the ultimate patience with all of us because we're born into sin, we're born in enmity, we're an enemy of God the day we're born. And so in that moment God is our enemy, and he becomes patient with us, willing to deal with— that's where you see one of the versions. And when you look at the fruit of spirit, you see long-suffering. And what is that? It means is you're able to endure an individual's grief and pain. You're bearing it up because you love them. Your expression of love is patience. If you're not showing patience— notice that's the first word— if you're not showing patience to someone, You're not showing them love. If you're quick-tempered, or if you're struggling, or you're easily to anger, and you're just— or bothered all the time, then that's not love. We get confused what love really means. We think love ultimately is just an expression towards people, maybe close family, through relationships, friends, maybe coworkers, whatever you may be, or even something that you're doing. But ultimately, love is really none of that. That's what the Bible teaches us. The Bible teaches us that love is actually an action towards others, and it starts with patience. You have to show patience. So what's the next word that it talks about? Kindness. Once again, here we go, another fruit of the Spirit that's attached to love. So not only do you have to be patient with an individual, Or individuals, you have to be kind to those people. And so now what you start to see is is that that kindness starts to bubble up. It's an expression of happiness. It's an expression of joy. It's an expression of peace. It's an expression of just caring for the person because you do that. You show an interest in their well-being. So as you're lifting them up through patience. And then kindness. What you're starting to see is that God is showing that those are the 2 first attributes of love. If you're truly loving someone, you will see them through the eyes of patience and the eyes of kindness. Look at it from God's perspective. Let's take our story again. You're born into this world. We're an enemy of God, and yet he loves you. How does he love you? Well, he becomes— first, he's patient with you because he knows you are born into a sinful state. He's kind. He lifts you up. He gives you things. You're— he gives you mercy for the sins that you have. So he doesn't punish you with every time you commit a sin, because guess what? The wages of sin are death. Every single sin ultimately leads to death. May not be necessarily immediate, but it leads to death. And so God is willing to be patient and kind because he wants to bear you up. This is where grace comes in. So now all of a sudden you're getting blessings. You have anointing. You have giftings. You have all of these things coming to you, of which you deserve none of it. I don't deserve any of it. And so here we are, all of us are in this boat, and yet God is lavishing us with all these things. This actually applies to whether you are saved or you're not saved. It doesn't matter. He's still washing you with love. And we know that nothing can separate God's love from us. And so then you start going further. Let's go ahead and look at verse 6. And then you see the third attribute of love, that it rejoices with the truth. Love is truth, and that's key because now what you start to notice is that God is always going to be truthful with you. There's never a partial lie. There's never an aspect that is false in him. He's always going to be true, even if the things you don't want to hear, whether it's a form of correction or even to believe— I'll be honest with you— some form of edification or comfort. Because sometimes people don't care to be comforted. They just want to feel the anguish. They want to feel the pain. But God loves truth. Love will rejoice with the truth. That's so important because now you'll start to see that it anchors itself in truth. It's never false. Then we start to go into now more actions. So notice the next thing it talks about is protection. Love always protects. So now what you have, this situation, which is you have these outward reactions towards an individual, but now there's an— this other aspect where now it's an external one. It's more than just that. God is willing to go out and protect you from the evil one. God's willing to protect you from yourself. Imagine that situation where you're caught up and you're making mistakes and you don't even know it, and God is giving you the grace to protect you from you. What a powerful statement that is, because he loves you that much. He knows the best, because remember, he knows the truth, and the truth sets you free. So what does that lead to? Well, guess what? It leads to God protecting you from all the falsehoods in your life, whether it's a lie that you believe Which becomes a spiritual stronghold or mental stronghold, or even a generational curse that's handed down from generation to generation. You'll see that all over the place where all of a sudden in a family everyone dies of heart attacks, or everyone dies of cancer. All of a sudden, you know, people have issues in their body— arthritis and blood pressure and all these ailments— and it just runs in the family. Well, God loves you enough to protect you Even from those things when you don't even realize that's going to happen to you. That's really important because the one of the things is is that as we start to understand our walk with Jesus, we're not capable of truly defending ourselves. We don't have that power because we don't have true. We can't even defend ourselves when we're asleep, much less. Like how do you defend yourself against an enemy that doesn't sleep? You you can't even see the Satan for the most part, and and so. How do you defend yourself against an enemy like that who wants to destroy you? The moment God's hedge of protection drops— and you saw this with Job— his life went, turned into tatters overnight. Instantly, boom, it was over. And so that's what it's like. But God was willing to bring his angelic guard and watch over you. He's willing to bring his angelic hosts and sing over you. He's willing to do that even if you don't love him. That's how much he loves you, because he knows that if he's patient with you, he's kind, he bears you up. He shows you the truth. He will protect you. He'll guide you into a place where you realize that he's God, that he's willing to give everything, and he has given everything to you in order for you to come back to him. That's why he loves you so much. But it gets into this last 3, and I really want you to— these last 3 should hit home for you in a big way, because this is the thing that I was— it was revealed to me not too long ago. That when people don't trust you, they truly don't trust God. That's the truth. It's not you that they don't trust. It's God that they don't trust. Why? Why would I say that? How could I say that? Well, because all Christians have the Holy Spirit inside of them. And if a Christian believes that a Christian is doing their part and walking the walk with the Holy Spirit, if they don't trust you, it's not you they don't trust. It's the Holy Spirit they don't trust. So that's why love undergirds trust, because God loves you, trusts you with these giftings, and he's willing to bless you with anointing and give you blessings and bless you so that you can be fruitful and multiply and do these things. So he gives you a measure of faith to start your walk. He gives you gifts that are irrevocable. I mean, you see this throughout the world, people using their spiritual gifts. Their physical gifts, their mental gifts for profit. God won't take them back. You're— they're theirs. It's theirs. He trusts them to use it for his glory. That's how much he loves you. That's how much he loves me. That's how much he loves us. It's so powerful when you start to understand that. But it goes even deeper. It doesn't stop at trust. He keeps going. The 6th expression or definition of love Is hope. What a powerful thing! Because love is always hopeful. It's always looking to the future and saying, "There is a better day ahead." Joy cometh in the morning. These beautiful things thinking that this day is the day the Lord has made. Let me be glad and rejoice in it. This is the day the Lord has made. It is be you know is the sun rises. Let us be fruitful. Let us be amazed. His faithfulness, his mercies are renewed daily. That's just beautiful because he is always hoping, always hopeful that the next day, the next minute, we'll make that choice to choose Jesus. We'll make that choice to cast away that sin. He'll make that choice to let the Holy Spirit in a little bit more, to surrender deeper, to get a little closer, to push aside an idol that we brought up in our life and say, you know what? I don't really care about Going to football games anymore. I really care about doing all these addictive things, whether it was drinking or gambling, whatever that may be. God loves you because he's hopeful that you'll turn to him and surrender deeper. That's the essence of love. It always hopes. There is no sometimes hopes. There is no sometimes trusts. There is no Sometimes protects. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes. It's a beautiful expression that God trusts you, that God is hopeful and has a vision for your life. It doesn't matter if you're 80 years old today; you're 80 years young in God's eyes. He will have an opportunity to believe that you will become something greater. We see this all over people in the Bible: Caleb taking the mountain at 85 years old. We see this with Colonel Sanders, who founded KFC. I think he was in his mid-seventies when he founded it and built that into an empire. It's never too late to find hope because God's love is persistent and never stops, which then leads to the last attribute in 1 Corinthians chapter 13: love always perseveres. Now think about this from their perspective. You might be— I'm not sure whenever you watch this video, I'm not sure if you're going to be in the worst storm of your life, struggling beyond belief. But I will tell you that love always, always perseveres. It's something that no storm can overcome. It doesn't matter how long that storm lasts in your life. It doesn't matter if it's a storm that lasts a day, Or 40 years. God is greater than your storm. God is greater than your sin. God proved that when Jesus rose himself up from the dead and he conquered death, that even death has no power over Jesus. In fact, Jesus allows death to exist in order for it to fulfill his purpose for us in this world. And I know that might sound strange, but the reality is, is this body has to be shed in order for us to get our glorious bodies. So this is our testing ground. This is our opportunity to go through trials and tribulations. These are opportunities to help others and to refine ourselves and build our faith and put us in a position where then when we become presented to God, that we have been refined and sanctified by God through this process. And how is that done? It's done through perseverance. And that's what God is, is he's never ever going to quit on you. It doesn't matter what you've done, what you're going through, how you feel about yourself. It doesn't matter. God will persevere for you. He is greater than anything that you've ever done. That's the reality. And so he loves you so much that he's willing to endure to the end. Look at the thief on the cross. He's literally, literally on his deathbed. Or at least in this case, the death cross. And he's there dying next to Jesus, and he scolds the other, the other condemned criminal and says, Jesus, remember me when you go into your kingdom. And Jesus turns to him and said, today you will be with me in paradise. And so that, that thief didn't get baptized. That thief didn't go to Sunday school. He didn't graduate from theology college. He didn't have a doctorate. He just asked Jesus to remember him, and he's in heaven. He doesn't have all these other religious aspects with him. He didn't have all these things, you know, a financial success or the— a blue blood royalty line or any of those things. He lived a life entirely, literally entirely, of sin. Yet God persevered Until the end of his life. When he asked for forgiveness, he got it and got salvation into— in addition to that. That's what love is. That's the power of love. That's how you can see it as a garment, because now you'll see all these things. So let's, let's recap. Love is patient. Love is kind. It rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts. Always hopes, and always perseveres. And so when you see someone loving someone through those actions, that's pure love. So let's let's continue on with love and what else it means in the life of the believer as well as the non-believer if you're someone who's trying to understand who this Jesus guy is. And so it will have to start. Legitimately, it really does, with the great sacrifice, with Jesus dying on the cross. Here we have the God of heaven, perfect in all his ways, knowing that he has to send his perfect Son to take the place of his family in order for them to be redeemed. Because remember, none of us can stand before the throne of God and even exist for a split second with sin on our life. We have to be cleansed And the sacrificial system that was put in by the Mosaic Law was not designed for salvation. If you remember, it was designed to take the punishment of sin and place it on something else. That's the whole essence. When you see them taking care of the animal, then they— before they do that, they actually lay their hands on the animal, and they're— what they're doing is, is they're transferring the sin to the animal, and then the animal receives the punishment Which is death, and then the person continues on. It has nothing to do with eternal salvation because Hebrews talks about this. Because if it was, if the blood and goats and rams were perfect, you wouldn't have to do it year after year. But yet Jesus's sacrifice, because he went into the Holy of Holies and he died, not, not physically but spiritually, he went into that sacred place by his own blood for all people all time. There was one sacrifice that allowed all of us to be cleansed. And so now we have this path to the Father through reconciliation, through Jesus Christ. And we see that John chapter 15:13 talks about this: greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for one's friends. And Paul talks about this is when you think about it, Everyone in the world, practically, for pretty much most likely, was an enemy of God when Jesus was there. I, I would bet there were very few truly righteous people in the sense that they had Abraham-like faith. When— and, and we'll definitely talk about that in a future, uh, study, but bear with me for this moment. So think about it from the perspective that Jesus is there and the vast majority of the people on the earth Probably some. If you let's just say if there was a let's say there was a couple hundred million people then a couple hundred million people were his enemy, like literally that hot much. And yet Jesus is like I'm gonna go to the cross. I'm gonna die for everyone. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it for everyone that passed who who's waiting in Abraham's bosom. I'm gonna do it for everyone that's alive. I'm gonna do that for everyone that's coming. And Paul talks about that in his epistles that. A man, a righteous man, may not even lay down his life— or sorry, a person may not lay down his life for a righteous person, much less for his enemy. So here Jesus is showing that the greatest act of love, that he's dying for his enemies. And we were his enemies, you and me, and yet he did it anyway. And so this is great love because again, it shows The action of being willing to go to the cross, to die in our place, and to just wash away our sins, knowing that his kindness, his patience, his endurance, his perseverance will lift us up at the right time in order for us to cross over from death into life. And we see this throughout Jesus's ministry. We see that even in the first miracle when he goes to the wedding at Cana and He, he's not even supposed to reveal his ministry, yet he still, by action, by love, transfers and converts all this water that's in these big, uh, basically clay pots. I think they're probably close to like 33 to 40 gallons each, so they're huge. And he just makes wine out of water. Well, why? He, he obviously knew the people, but Why did he do that? Because at that time, culturally, running out of wine was a big deal because weddings lasted generally around a week. The celebration lasted a long time. So if you didn't have the money to pay for your guests' entertainment, you were really looked upon as a, you know, from low society. And that would have been very— it would have been condemning. And yet Jesus stepped in. My ministry is not getting started, but I'm going to do this out of an act of love. It started then. Look at— let's fast forward 3 and a half years where Jesus takes off his robe and then he starts washing his disciples' feet. Think about that. Think about the President of the United States. Whenever you watch this video, whoever is the President of the United States at the time coming to your house, he or she taking off their, you know, clothes, their tops, and just getting into basically You know, just something where they can get wet. So almost like a bathing suit level of clothing, and they're washing your dirty feet. Everything that's about it—that's what Jesus did. And remember, back then they had open soles where they had sandals, and so their feet were dirty all the time because they're basically in a desert. So there wasn't like there was a ton of grass and where you can wash things off. So you have the king of the universe. Think about this: this is the king of the universe. The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, what talks about in Revelation, and he's washing his disciples' dirty feet. It's beautiful. It's master-grade love. I mean, I don't know how else to describe it. It's immaculate. And so it shows that God was willing to humble himself to the point that he loved his people that much. What an unbelievable expression of love. To be able to, to show that and to do it. Because remember, love really, at the end of the day, isn't an emotion. There is aspects of emotion to it, but love is all action. And what better way to love and wear love as a garment, to take off your garments in order to wash your friends and family's feet? I mean, if that was done today in churches or done as people came over, for Thanksgiving dinners and Easter dinners and Christmas dinners, it would be game-changing. I would be surprised if there was a dry eye in the house when that happened. It would be so powerful. It would be— it would transform the way we would look at everything. But let's go further. Let's go deeper. So now we see at the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we get to verse 13, and we see that even though he's talking about these beautiful attributes, these virtues, these giftings, the fruit fruit, uh, the seeds, whatever you want to describe all these wonderful expressions of love. He says there's 3 that remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. So even greater than faith, even greater than hope, there's love. Now think about that with your faith walk with Christ. Now we know that faith without works is dead. But we know you do not need works in order to get to heaven. We talked about that earlier with the thief on the cross. He didn't go to Sunday school after he was crucified. He died. That was it. He wasn't baptized. He didn't have an opportunity to do anything else. He just had faith in Jesus, and that was it. And so we know that. So we know that faith gets you into heaven, but the works that follow faith prove your faith. They become the fruit of their faith. But even still, what God is saying is, is that you have your faith and you have your hope, but the greatest of these parts is love. So what does that mean for us as Christians, as we— our daily walk with Christ? So what it truly means to you and me is let's not get caught up in the works. Let's not get caught up in the busyness of the day. Let's not get caught up in all of the things— the possessions, the wants, the notoriety, The ministries, all of the things that God would bless us with. Let's pursue God. Let's love God like he loved us. What did Jesus say to Martha whenever she was busily trying to prepare a meal and Mary was just sitting at the feet of Jesus? What did Jesus say? He says, Martha, Martha, you're worried about many things, but there's only one thing that's required, and Mary won't have that taken away from her. In the entire New Testament, the word of God that's coming out of Jesus's mouth, he never said that there was things required except this one thing. What is that? To love Jesus, to sit at his feet and let him talk to you, let him minister to you, let him build a relationship up through this physical world into the spiritual where he can pour into you. That's the essence of love. That's why it's the greatest of these things, because love becomes the faithful expression of your faith and your hope in this world. And you can't, you can't do anything— there's nothing greater. Because as you see in the fruit of the Spirit, if you're bearing people up, if you're kind to them, you're joyful, you're peaceful, you're good to them, you're faithful to them, you're gentle with them, That's what God wants for them and for you. Because remember, what you, what you sow in the ground is what you're going to reap. So if you sow discord, if you sow lies, if you sow impatience, if you sow anxiety, that's what you're going to get back. That's reality. That's, that is the truth. And so if you're sowing love and you're wearing love as a garment, and everyone that sees you says, wow, that is a loving person 24/7. It doesn't matter the situation, that person's loving. That's what you're going to reap, is that love. You're going to reap the patience that you give. You're going to reap the kindness you give. It may not come in that season, and in fact, believe it or not, in some instances it may not even come in your life because you may be planting seeds that your children or your grandchildren will harvest. And so that's a biblical concept too. But either way, I would rather sow an entire state's worth of love seeds and all the attributes, okay, and allow that to be the inheritance for my kids and my grandkids and the great-grandkids forever, because that would change the world in a way that would be never compared to anywhere else. It would be mind-blowing because love is the greatest of these. It's the greatest seed to plant in a person because it's a garment that you can wear. So I'd like to kind of highlight one thing. If you're into biblical numerology, this is one interesting thing that God did, is he took the greatest attribute, love, And he puts it in the 13th chapter, in the 13th verse. And I know, I know the love— I know the world loves, in this case, you know, enjoys, uh, putting a bad number, uh, 13 out there, that it's unlucky. Well, there's 12 disciples, there's 12 apostles, there's 12 tribes, 12 months out of the year. 13 is unlucky. Couldn't be furthest from the truth. God intentionally put love, the greatest attribute that you can have, you can be, you can act, in the 13th verse in the 13th chapter. And I do understand that back then there weren't chapters and verses, and that was added later. But God knew that there was going to be added later, and he knew where to place it just perfectly. So, so much for 13 being unlucky— another lie that the world likes to tell us. So Now let's kind of start to wrap this up in the kind of closing 15 minutes, and let's talk about Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 5. And we're also going to touch on Leviticus chapter 19, verse 18. And you see those verses were restated by the Master later. Matthew 22, verse 38, Jesus says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, With all your soul and with all your strength. And so think about it from this perspective. Now we have the greatest commandment. The greatest commandment is loving God. And now we've spent all this time putting into place that love is a garment that you wear. Love is action. Love is what you do. Notice that it's— so we're stepping beyond faith. We've stepped beyond hope. We talked about that. That love is greater than both of those things. And so now what you're doing is you're truly, truly putting God first in your life. In the priority, if you're married, your spouse is your number 2 priority in your life. God will always be your number one priority. If you're not married, God's your number one priority and your family is your number 2 priority. And so what you start to see is, is that when you put God first above all things, and then you're pouring everything of your being— because there's 4 aspects to your being: it's your physical body, it's your emotions, it's your mind, and your spirit. Those are your 4 things. And so if you're pouring all 4 of those aspects, those attributes, towards God in a loving action, so everything that you're doing is pleasing in his sight, because you know you don't want to do something that would displease him. Think about it from the perspective as a child trying to please a parent. If you're a younger person and your parents are still alive and you're blessed to have them around, and you start to do something they don't like, you most likely, more than likely, are going to feel bad about it. Even if you don't have— you're in a situation where they don't even see it, you're still going to feel like, ah, I shouldn't have done that. But even more so when they see it. Now imagine this: God, who sees everything, He knows that sin before you're going to commit it. So he not only sees it— you can't hide it from him— but you're doing it, and sometimes intentionally. And I was caught in that situation too. And so he's saying, put the sin, even the sin that easily ensnares you, below me. Yield it to me. Give it to me. Surrender to me. Love me first. Show me by your actions Not just your emotions, not just the posture of your heart, not even just with your words, but with your actions. Put him first and pour everything into that relationship with him. Pour everything into that relationship with Jesus. Make time for Jesus. Make time for prayer. Make time to read that Bible. Make time to study it, to talk to him, and just have a conversation with him. It doesn't have to get weird. It could just be you recapping your day. You know, a lot of people love to just talk, you know, no different than kind of like this, what I would consider like this therapy type situation where they, they just want to spill their day to someone and they just want someone to listen. They don't want anyone to talk. They just want someone to listen to their problems. Well, guess what? God's the greatest listener. So have that conversation with him. Pour it out to him. Give it all up to him. Put him first in your life. Give him the time of day. Tithe your day. 2.4 hours every day, give something to him. You can do that. Believe it or not, that's actually not a hard thing to do. Even if you start your morning and you dedicate time, you can easily get an hour, an hour and a half in there with him. It's not that difficult to squeeze out even a half hour at lunch and a half hour in the evening. And or you're out walking, you're going to work, or you're going to church, or you're going over to friends. Those moments you could spend listening to the Bible. You could spend worshipping him. You could spend praising him, thanking him. Say, "Thank you for my mortgage payment getting paid for the 30th straight month. Thank you for allowing me to be able to pay for my cars or send my kids to college or have food on the table." Pour out. That love, that gratitude, that hopefulness towards him, and thank him and give him blessings, give him glory, show him he's number one over everything. Because remember, when you're seeking his kingdom, right, and his righteousness, everything gets added. You don't have to chase what you attract. God's going to bless you if you tithe. You're on the kingdom economy. That's biblical. That's New Testament. If you love God that much, you're going to say Look, God, you already own this money anyway, so I'm just going to give you back a tenth, and then I want to add my offerings on top of it. He's going to bless you. He even says in Malachi 3:10, you're not going to be able to even store the blessing. You're going to be blessed in order to be a blessing to others. He's going to give you so much that you have to give it away because there's nowhere else to put it. And think about it, so what do you see in the wealthiest people in the world? That they're the most generous people in the world. And you might argue, oh well, they have the money. Well, the reality is, is they don't get to that place Unless they're generous in the first place, because God knows he's not going to give them that much money. This is biblical too. When you look at the— when he talks about the gold, he talks about the 5, the 2, and the 1 talents. God gives people that do well and then gives them more. And so when you're pouring out your love, you're giving him your money, you're giving him your time, you're giving him your attention. And you're leaving nothing behind. You're putting him first, not only fulfilling the first commandment, you're showing true love. Because the reality is, think about this, God gave us this earthly kingdom to rule. He gave us his Son to die on the cross. He took the wrath of God in our place. He gave up everything for us. Why can't we do the same? That's all he's asking. That's what it talks about. And then when you look at when you look at Leviticus 19:18, and Jesus then talks about this in Mark 12:31, and it says, "Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor as much as yourself." There's no commandment greater than this. So now the same energy. That you give to God, you're now going to give to others. Think about this from the perspective— if we had a community of 100 people, just imagine 100 people that were loving to the level that God wants, maybe not perfectly because no one's perfect, we all sin. And imagine that we were giving our best in that lifetime. 100 people, we would literally change the world, especially if that community was supporting each other. Imagine 100 people loving on each other perfectly. The ripple effect that would go down to the children, the children's children, would be monumental. It would be unbelievable. It would change. There would be nothing in the kingdom of darkness that could stop it. It would be impossible. That's the power of loving your neighbor. Because remember, loving your neighbor as yourself shows that truthfully you not only care about them, but that you're prioritizing them and their well-being. And you, and you say, well, why? Well, because God did. God sent Jesus to die for them too. He didn't send Jesus just for you and me. He sent it for all of them, all of those people, even the ones you don't like— the noisy neighbor with the barking dogs or the cats that get out for no reason. Or, you know, the elderly people down the street who's cranky and complains about everything. It doesn't matter who they are, okay? It doesn't matter what they've done in their life. God loves them, and he calls us to love everyone. He doesn't call us to like everyone— that's a completely different thing— but he does call us to love them. And how do we show that love? Remember, you show it through kindness. You show it through patience. You show it through being truthful to them, that you will protect them even when they can't protect themselves, that you trust them, that you hope for and you persevere. When you show people love, you wear it as a garment where it's on you every single day. You've got this beautiful smile on your face and you're just glowing with God's glory reflecting off of you. There's no way people can continue to treat you poorly because even when they try, it doesn't stick because the love of God pours and washes away all the smudge and sludge and trash and sin in the life. And what remains is this perfect place of harmony and peace and joy. And that's really the key of love, is it establishes a firm foundation in which relationships are built. That's the whole point. That's the foundation, is this beautiful thing called love, because it's an expression that no matter what happens throughout the day, no matter what's going on in an individual's life, no matter what's troubling them or causing them issues or causing them pain or suffering, love is going to win out that day in a way that can't be compared. And so when you're putting God first, you're prioritizing him at the top of the list. You're loving him before everything. We know that that's the number one thing. He's always number one. And when you're loving your neighbor as yourself, you're prioritizing your neighbor in a way that you're saying, the way I'm going to treat myself, the way I take care of myself, the way I look out for myself, the way I care for myself, and how I treat myself in the context of what clothes do I wear, what food do I eat, what place do I stay— when you then transfer that same level of energy and action towards others. You actually may be the one person in their life that truly shows them love. You, you may be the one person that truly reflects Christ in their life that they've never seen. You've heard this old saying before, is that you may be the only Bible anyone ever reads. And remember, the thief on the cross didn't have a Bible. He had some scrolls. We don't know if he went to the synagogues And we don't even know if he ultimately— it wasn't even described if he was a Jew. He could have been a Gentile. He could have been a Roman citizen. We don't know. But when you're showing that love to others, you are lifting them up. You're bearing them up. You are showing them that they are important, that they're cared for, that they're respected, and that they're honored. And when you show people that, guess what happens is that it can't stop there. It has to reflect. It has to get stuck in them. It gets buried. It removes the problems in their life, and they're like, "Wow, this person is always cheerful, no matter what's going on." Look at the suffering that they had. I remember I heard one story one time talking specifically about me. They're like, "Man, you." And this was a time where I had back problems. I had about for thirty years. I had back problems that were just debilitating and crippling. But I knew God would heal me someday, and he did. And what a beautiful story that is! And that's actually captured in one of my other videos, Living a Secret Life. And if you guys want to hear an awesome testimony, go over to that video. But the key thing was is that one thing they said was is that you're never depressed, you're never sad. You're like, you're literally in pain every single day, and you're suffering with burning and electrocution-style pain, and you can't physically do stuff. You can't pick things off the floor, but yet you're always joyful. You're always at peace. How? I said, because I love God. I knew who God is and will always be in my life. I know who God— what he did for me, and I knew he was going to heal me. And he did. He delivered me from all that pain and all that suffering. And so what it does is it shows that love can be an anchor, it can be a foundation, it could be a garment in your life that when other people see it, it just blows them away. And you're like, how can you be like that? How can you act like that? Because God loved me through all the pain and all the suffering. And so he calls me to love him the same way and to love you the same way too. No matter what you're going through, no matter what storm you're enduring, No matter what pain you're experiencing, no matter what sin you've committed, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. God still loves you. We know that the— at the end of Romans, it talks about, at the end of chapter 8, one of the greatest chapters in the entire Bible, it said nothing has the power to separate us from God's love. Nothing. Not the Archangel Michael, not Lucifer, Not the governments, not anyone. No one has that power to rise up and separate us from God's love. Nothing can do that. And so if nothing has the authority to keep God from loving us, we talked about what love is, is all these beautiful expressions. So God will continue to do those things in your life until you meet him face to face. Regardless if you're going to heaven or hell, you're going to see Jesus. Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. And so we're gonna see him, good or bad, face to face. He's going to love you through all of those steps up until that moment. And he's never gonna quit. He's never gonna stop persevering. He's never gonna stop hoping. He's never gonna stop trusting. He's never going to stop doing the things that he needs to do in order to bring life to you. And when you can take that into the world in every single moment of your life, and when you can take that into every situation, Whether you're at work or you're struggling at work or at church, with your relationship, it doesn't matter. If you know that the Lord God loves you no matter what, and that it will never stop, and that you can do the same to others and you can persevere, it's a great story. It's beautiful. It changes your perspective on life forever. Amen. And when you can take that hopeful, patient, kind approach to every single situation, you can persevere, you can be gentle, you can be good, you can be faithful. It changes everything. That's why love is a garment that you wear, because people see it. You can take it off and give it to someone else because you still have it, and now they have it too. And it's beautiful. And so I hope this teaching blesses you. And I want to take a moment here for those who've hung out this long and got to this point, that we have a very bold mission and a vision here at John Humenik Ministries. Our job here is to be able to preach the gospel to every single person before the rapture. Our job is to be able to go out there and spread these beautiful words, these teachings, these edifications, these things that lift each other up. And to help us know that there is a God that loves you unconditionally. Unconditionally, he loves you. So if you have an opportunity, we'll have it in our links down below in the comments where you can go to humanik.com/give and donate one time or become a monthly partner. We also have opportunities that we have other methods through PayPal and other things where you can send a check. But if you, if you do feel led, I would encourage you to go to humenik.com/give. It's spelled H-U-M-E-N-I-K.com/give and make a donation. We'll take this opportunity— everything we get goes into the ministry to be able to grow and be able to spread the gospel throughout all the races, nations, and kingdoms. And so that's our goal, is to spread it everywhere and be the hands and feet of the kingdom in this world. So I hope this message blesses you. God bless and have a wonderful evening and a great weekend.