How much do you love my Jesus

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Transcript

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Welcome to the Be and Become Podcast, featuring Francois Carr, a hard form and collective life ministry. Francois's international ministry equips and encourages pastors, ministry leaders, and fellow Christians as they discover what it means to truly be and become the followers they were meant to be. Thank you for joining Francois today as he offers a few words of encouragement from God's Word.

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The last few days I wake up with the words, How much do you love my Jesus in my heart? And I thought about the love that Jesus has shown by dying on the cross on Calvary so many years ago for you and for I, but also that the world might know how much he loved his Father. And as I was thinking about the love that Jesus Christ had for me, I thought about a woman called Mary Magdalene. She was a Jewish woman from the fishing town of Mykdala on the western shores of the Sea of Galilee. She was a devoted follower of Jesus Christ whose life was radically transformed when Christ healed her from the seven demons. She's mentioned twelve times in the Gospels, more than most of the Gospels. In the reading of those verses of Scripture, we see that she was part of Jesus' ministry. She traveled with him. She was present when Jesus was crucified. She was at the foot of the cross when he was hanging on the cross. She was there when they laid Jesus into the tomb. She prepared the previous night to visit his tomb and brought some spices to anoint his body. She was the first one to be there on resurrection Sunday morning, even before the first streaks of the dawn had come. She saw the empty tomb and ran back to Peter and the other apostle, and she told them that somebody has taken the body out of the tomb of Jesus away, and we don't know where they have put him, she said. And so they went back and she stayed at the tomb after Peter and the other one has left and encountered two angels. But as she was standing there, she heard Jesus called her name called Mary. And the Bible says he turned and responded with the words Rabboni. And we know that the word rabbi means teacher, but the word Raboni means my master teacher. Not just teacher, but my master teacher. The same word appears in also in the Gospel of St. Mark chapter 10 when Jesus healed the man in the city of Jericho. So it's not just teacher, it's my teacher, my master teacher. She was then sent by Jesus to tell the apostles of what she had seen and tell them that I have seen the Lord. And she became the first messenger following the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. And as I read the story of Flory Evans, I thought about the same kind of principle of how much do you really love the Lord Jesus? It was in the year 1903 that a pastor in West Wales grieved over the growing worldliness and the evident lack of devotion to Jesus in the lives of so many young people, especially in those in his community. He arranged for a special two-day conference, a meeting over the next year. He preached messages to them that spoke to the hearts of the young people and made a tremendously deep impression upon some of them, especially a young teenage girl called Florie Evans. She was challenged by what she heard, and she found herself later that month at a crisis pond, and so she met the pastor and she told him that what she experienced and especially recognized the world's grip upon her heart and upon her life, and she realized she cannot live like this anymore. And so he asked her a question whether she was a surrendered person and can she truly say, My Lord, to the Lord Jesus Christ. She understood it and she was challenged by it, and she left. Convicted by the Holy Spirit, she soon yielded herself to the Lord's demand to reign on the throne of her heart. And so she made a decision for an absolute surrender to the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was on the Sunday following her surrender that Flory heard the pastor ask the question, What does Jesus mean to you? And so she stood and she simply said, I love the Lord Jesus with all of my heart. Her sincerity was unmistakable. Her expression of love touched the hearts of all those across the room. The conviction spread, and hearers would become to understand that we love him because he first loved us and has shown that to us on the cross on Calvary. Her testimony of love provided the town of Newquay with a necessary catalyst that becomes an instrument of revival that became part of the Welsh Revival of 1904 and 1905. And so what about us? What can we learn from Mary Magdalene, but especially from the moment that Jesus appeared unto her and why? So when I look at Mary's life, I realize that our past does not determine the future or the end of our lives, what God can do in us and through us if he can find someone who is wholly yielded unto him and devoted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Mary Magdalene supported Jesus with all that she had. She has personified the word love and devotion of one who owned everything to Jesus Christ and one who knew that. Just like Flory Evans has come to a point of realizing I cannot do this any more without him. And so why did Jesus come to her? He came to her because she loved him. Jesus promised in John chapter 14, verses 21 and 23, that whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them. And Jesus said, If we love him, we will obey his teachings. The Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Flory said, I love the Lord Jesus with all my heart. Mary Magdalene loved him. Jesus came to her because she loved him. Jesus comes to those who love him. He will come to you too if you love him. And so the question really today is how much do you love Jesus? But I want to rephrase the question. I want to ask you, how much do you love my Jesus? Because if you do, he will come to you just like he came to Mary and met with her on that Sunday morning in Jerusalem. And so the question is just like Jesus loved his father so much, and you and I that he was willing to die on that cross and Calvary is the question today how much do you love Jesus? No, how much do you love my Jesus? May God bless you.

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Thank you for listening to this Be and Become episode with Francois Carr. For more information about the ministry, visit the website at ConnectedLifeministries.com. We hope you'll join Francois next time as he continues the conversation on what it means to be and become the follower you are meant to be.