My Church pt. 1 - Loves God

Title of message:  My Church Loves God   (Deuteronomy 6:5) “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”   (Deuteronomy 6:1) (NLT) “These are the commands, decrees, and regulations that the Lord your God commanded me to teach you. You must obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy,”   (Deuteronomy 7:9) “Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.”   (Daniel 6:3) “Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.”   Why do we love God? Because we have experienced Him personally.   How do I love God? 1.    Experience His Presence   (Acts 2:28) “You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.”   (Revelation 1:8) “I am the Alpha and the Omega—the beginning and the end,” says the Lord God. “I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come—the Almighty One.”   (John 5:39-40) (Message) "You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me! And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from me the life you say you want.”   (2 Corinthians 3:16-17 (Message) “Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We're free of it!”   (2 Corinthians 3:17) “…where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”   2.    Experience His power   (1 Corinthians 2:3-5) “I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.”   (John 9:17, 25) Finally they turned again to the blind man, “What have you to say about him?” He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”   (Matthew 13:14-15) “In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: “You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.  For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.”   (Hosea 10:12) “Sow for yourselves righteousness, reap the fruit of unfailing love, and break up your unplowed ground; for it is time to seek the LORD, until he comes and showers righteousness on you.”