LOVE is an acronym

L-let

O GO Of

V EVERYTHING 

E ELSE

Luke 14:26 we cannot ignore sin in our own lives or the lives of our loved ones otherwise we will bring condemnation upon ourselves and others 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Good afternoon. Welcome to All Things God. This is John Huffman. Today we're going to discuss the Word of God. Not the Word of God, the Bible, the Word of God, the person. And they are really literally the same thing. The difference is the revelation. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. The Word is Jesus Christ. But you cannot know the Word of God except by revelation. No one knows the Son. The Word is the Son. The Word is the Son. And you cannot know the Son. No one knows the Son but the Father. So in order to know the Word of God, you must have it revealed to you. Men have been reading this thing for 2,000 years. They're no closer to God than when they started. But you can be. Two reasons. Why? One is because God's revealing himself to us in these days. And so we're going to understand who God is by revelation. So the word is, the word took on flesh and dwelt among us. That's what John says. So when I read a passage in the Bible, my carnal man cannot comprehend it. In the way that it was meant. And I'm not talking context. If a preacher or a teacher says the word context, I just shut it off. Because that's not how you understand the word of God. It is in context. Well, you gotta understand that these were Jews, and this is this is 2,000 years ago. No, you don't gotta understand anything. You gotta understand that you don't know what you're talking about because you don't have the revelation. God wanted you to understand that passage. I'll give you an example. Luke 14, 26. The whole gospels are about love, blah, blah, blah. Jesus loves you, love, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All of a sudden you get to Luke 14, 26. In order to follow him, you gotta hate your mother, your brother, your cousin, your uncle, your sister, your daughter, your yourself. You gotta, how can that be? I gotta love my enemies, but I gotta hate myself? How does that work? Well, in context, it's relative disregard. No, it that's not what it means. Do you know who Eli is? Eli was the the um chief priest back in the days of Samuel and David. Eli. He was a chief priest, and he had two sons named Hopni and Phineas. So the two sons were wicked, even though they were there priests, they were wicked. So what they were doing, they would take the sacrifices brought by the population, and they would take the best cuts of the sacrifices, and they would beat it to their dad instead of offering it to God. And what did Eli do about it? Did he stop him? No, he got fat from the sacrifices, from those offerings that he was being bad by his sons. He got fat. And the word says that he fell over and broke his neck, he got so fat. So what does it mean, Luke 14, 26? It means if Eli regarded his children in their proper place instead of regarding them above God, he would have stopped them from stealing the sacrifices of God, but he didn't. He regarded his sons above God, and so he ignored their sin to his own peril. He died. That's what it means. So we can do the exact same thing. We can ignore the sin in our own life, we can ignore the sin in our family's life. Why? Because we love them. That's not how it works. We need to regard God above our family and ourselves in order to be honest with each other and transparent. And I'm not talking about take the beam out of your own eye before you get the speck out of your neighbor's eye. I'm talking about integrity. Walking in integrity and accountability. If we are accountable to ourselves and to God, then we will, it won't be necessary for other people to hold us accountable. If I hold myself accountable, I won't need somebody else to hold me accountable. So that's what that means. That means in relative disregard for heli regarded his sons above God, and by doing that, he ignored their sin. And guess what happened? Not only did he fall over and fall dead, but their souls were in jeopardy of being lost forever. So my teenage daughter or son is being arrogant and acting up. I have two choices. I can either let them know what the righteous action is, and the righteous action is going to be something where their flesh isn't promoted. Remember, we're in the process of dying to ourselves. Take up your cross and follow me. That's what Jesus said. Do you remember Jesus had these two guys come to him? One said, Lord, I'd love to follow you, but my I need to bury my my family, my parents. He turned to him and he said, Let the dead bury the dead. And that seems very callous, doesn't it? That seems like a very callous thing to say. But what he was saying is this if you love me, love is an acronym. Do you know what an acronym? An acronym means that the the letters of the word love mean something else. L-O-B-E. L let. L stands for let. O stands for go of G-O-O-F. So let go of B stands for everything. E B. Let go of everything and the last E stands for else. Let go of everything else and follow me. Just let go of everything else and follow me. You it's the pearl of great price. It's going to cost you something. There's a term in economics that's called opportunity cost. That means if I have $10 in my pocket and I spend five of it on an ice cream cone, then I've traded that $5 for an opportunity down the line. That means I can't buy the book that I need for my class in college. But I had my ice cream. And I need to go buy my book, but I can't. Why? Because of the opportunity cost is lost. Why? Because I bought the ice cream. I only had $10. That's what the book costs. Now I've only got five because I ate the ice cream. The Lord is the same way. If we are going to follow him, it's going to cost us. If we are going to church to save our own lives from hell, spare my flesh from hell. It ain't going to happen. Your flesh is destined for destruction. It's going back to the ground where it came from. If you're going to follow Jesus, it's going to cost you everything. I know personally it has. I don't even care. I don't even care to talk about it. This is the Pearl of Great Price where we trade everything that we have for the Pearl. I am the richest man on this planet. I don't have a dollar in my bank account at 51 cents. But I am the richest man on this planet because I have traded everything for the pearl of great price. And I don't know anybody who knows God as well as I do. And I'm not boasting. I'm saying I possess something more valuable than anything you can buy. I would not trade my relationship with God, the possession that I have, in the pearl for all of Elon Musk and Bill Gates' money together, for all the gold in Port Knox, whether there is any in there or not, is probably debatable. But this is the cost of following Jesus. It's an opportunity cost. I can't continue to build my kingdom, my castle. This is where the church is at. Okay. Joel Olstein, Joyce Meyer, Jesse Duplantes, Kenneth Copeland, Benning, TBN Network. They're still busy building their own castles instead of the kingdom. What are you talking about? We raised money for a well. Yeah, well, congratulations. What a great sacrifice you made. It wasn't your money to start with. You policed it from the flock. I would warn them right now to sell everything that they have and give the money to the poor and repent and save their souls. We have a choice. The choice is to let go of everything else and follow him. That's if you love me, that's what you do. You let go of everything else and you follow him. And he is, remember uh Peter said, silver and gold have our number, but such as I have, I can give it to you. If you don't possess Christ, and he doesn't possess you, you have nothing. You have nothing. Money. Money. Are you kidding? Are you kidding me? A fancy house that burns up. A car. Congratulations. Well, you're doing so well for yourself. What proper man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? The Pearl of Great Price is the prize in this life. And we have an opportunity to trade everything that we have and everything that we are in order to get it, but we have to let go of everything else. Love is an acronym. Luke 14, 26. Thank you for listening.