In this sermon, the preacher discusses the importance of love in our interactions with others. He shares personal experiences of encountering difficult situations and emphasizes that without love, we may have a weak testimony and fail to win others to Christ. The preacher also reflects on a time when he had a negative attitude towards his neighbors and how God showed him that he wouldn't be able to win them over with that approach. He concludes by urging the audience to repent of their sins, receive Jesus as their Savior, and not to miss out on the opportunity to have a relationship with Him.

Well, it's good to be back with you again today on Eagle's Wings. I'm trusting that God is going to work in your heart today. I believe he has a special message for us. I have some some neat things to share with you. I have so much to share with you that I'm trusting God to give us wisdom with our time. First of all, let me start off with some scripture. I have a burden in my heart, a burden from the Spirit of God for the church, a burden from the Spirit of God for me, for you. Peter said, "...see, and ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren. See that you love one another with a pure heart, fervently." God has been showing me how much we must have love, and the reason that we need love in our fellowship, in our lives, is because we can have all kinds of correct doctrine, and we can be perfect in correct doctrine. If you can find somebody that's perfect in correct doctrine, but we can have all kinds of things. We can have great service, do great deeds, and give great amounts of money. But we know that the Apostle Paul said that without love, we're nothing. Listen to what the scripture says, "...above all things have fervent love among yourselves, for love shall cover the multitude of sins." One of the reasons that we have so many problems in our churches today is because we will not forgive, and we will not forgive, because we do not have love. One of the reasons we have so much criticalness, and judging, and judgmental spirits is because of a lack of love. My friends, I have a message today, to you today, that God has given to me in my heart. One that I have needed, that I still need, that I need day by day, and that's the message of love. Listen to what John said. He said, "...Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." My friend, one of the areas that is the hardest to come to completion in, and the Bible talks about completion, this perfection, and I'm not talking about being a perfect person, a perfect Christian, but I'm talking about being a spirit-filled Christian. One of the hardest areas is the area to let Christ love through us the way he wants to love. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love. How far are we willing to let God take us in loving people? We must love people for who they are, and not what they do, or we won't love them at all, and we won't love them with the love of Christ. And so we come out with our judgmental and critical spirit so many times, and it kills love. The Holy Spirit wants to love people through us. And you know what happens? Something comes along. Someone upsets our plans, interferes our life. We get upset. We get under bondage. We get angry. We get bitter. We become hateful. We're irritable, and it's all because of this area of love being missed. It's missing in our life. Let me take you back to Colossians chapter 3 and going down, starting maybe with verse 12. Listen to what the scripture says. Put on therefore, as elect of God, holy and beloved, bows of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and forgiving one another. If any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfectness. We've been traveling. We've been down south. As I am recording this message today, which is Saturday, and I think it's, what is it? I don't even know what day it is. It's Saturday, and we've been down south and traveling with people. God has has been teaching me things, and showing me things, and teaching me about this area of love. We get, we get into some tough situations sometimes, and God has shown me that without love, I'm nothing. I won't have any ministry. I won't have any power in the lives of people. I have to accept them as they are. I have to let the Holy Spirit change them, and love them. We, we were down in Louisiana. We went down to see my folks, and God opened up for some meetings down there, and God graciously allowed me to share seven times down there while, while we were visiting, and love was the thing that was to me predominant. Predominant in the area of God working. The thing that God was showing me in in the area of the negative side was my unbelief, and he showed my friend Donald. Him and I, we, we got together, and we believed that God wanted to do something in his area. He was burdened for his church. His pastor was having an affair with, with a woman, and had ran off most of the men in the church, and had set up the situation to where nobody could do anything, and if they would try, it would just split the church and blow it wide, wide open. What do you do in a situation like that? Well, God was showing us step-by-step what he wanted us to do, and one of the things he wanted us to do was pray, and, and, and get into a position to where we had some power in prayer, and he did that through another circumstance. But what do we do? How do we respond? And, and we felt like God wanted us to just have some meetings, so we set up some special meetings, and we, and we rented the, a room that's used for the community in the school, an abandoned school, a school that's used for other affairs now, and we just set up a meeting, and everyone was invited to come, and we didn't know what would happen. All we knew that was, God wanted us to do it, and we were obedient, and so we started off with a Thursday night and Friday night meeting, and we didn't have great crowds, but people came, and God blessed, and then we, we didn't go on, and the Holy Spirit got on to him and myself Saturday morning, and just really worked us both over, and when we got together, we know, we knew what we'd done. We should have extended the meetings, and we didn't, and God dealt with us on our unbelief, because we were not sensitive to what God wanted to do. So we extended the meetings on Monday night and Tuesday night, and God worked. There seemed to be such a spirit of unbelief, and, and God got all over me one day. I was out walking, and the Holy Spirit said, do you believe me to work? And he really got on to me, and I said, oh Lord, I'm not believing you to work the way you want me to believe you to work, and, and in the last meeting, it was a, it was a precious time, and God worked every time we met. God worked in a special way. One of the men got up, and we were down in the deep south, you got to understand, and the black people were coming. Oh, I was so excited, because our, the black people were coming, and my friend Donald loves people. He's just a, he just loves everybody. He's gone through tremendously deep things in his life, but he loves people, and God had used him to reach out into the community, white and black alike, and they came to the meetings, and that last meeting, one man got up, the Spirit of God had been working so much, and so powerfully, he got up and asked the black folks to forgive him for, and he had loved them, and felt like he had nothing in his heart against them, but, but yes, the Spirit of God had showed him one little thing in there, and he asked them to forgive him for it, that one little area of prejudice, and also on behalf of the race, the white race, because of our prejudice. My friend, love flowed through that place. The Holy Spirit was flowing through that place, and it was evident in love. Is it, is it evident in your life? Oh, it's good to be back up here. We have been visiting some friends, and, and maybe ought to take some time to just say hello. I've told a few of them that I'd be recording today, and we'd just say hi. I'd like to say hello to Lorenzo and Evelyn. We had a wonderful time out at their house last night, and, excuse me, that would have been Friday night, and hello to them and their family, hello to Ms. Wilson, and hello to the three barbers over there. I don't know where we were, over there, right between Joplin and Web City. They gave myself a haircut, and my two sons. We all got a haircut at the same time. Deborah, James, and I think the other one was Gary. Hello to the Johnsons down there, and my good friends, the Greers. I might just say hello to my children right now, as they're listening, Joshua, Jennifer, Joni, Joy, and John, and my wife, Vicki. They're listening, and I'm going to try to get them out to listen to the broadcast. We're right here in Joplin, right now, today, and hello to my wife again. Oh, I love you, honey, and then to our good friends, the Stubblefields. I'll tell you what, it's fun to have friends. We have friends all over. We can hardly get from one designation to any more, to another one anymore, when we try to see our friends, and we're coming back up from the south now, working our way back up towards western Nebraska, believing God to work as we go, believing God to do unusual things. By the way, if you'd like to call me, I'll give you a phone number, where you can reach me, I think, right now, while the program's going on, and afterwards, you can reach me at 417- 782-0914. We're excited to be back in this area. We're believing God to get us here someday. We love this area. We believe God's given us a special burden to this area, and we don't know how he's going to do it. We believed a year and a half ago, he was moving us here, and instead, we went off to western Nebraska. God had us up there. But you just keep praying for us. We know that God will open up for us, and wherever he does, he'll give us a house. That's one of the things that we have between the Lord. He'll provide us a house to live in that's adequate for our large family. We just love God. We are learning to love people, and let God minister to us through people. There's so many hurting people out that need God, and they need to experience the love of God. They need to experience the reality of Christ, and that's why Jesus, as you and me, and if we have been born again, and we know him, he wants to go out and love through us. He wants to speak to, through you, to somebody. He wants to reach out and hug somebody through you. He wants your feet to carry you, to minister to somebody. Jesus needs us, my friend. He needs us, and also, if you're listening, and you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, and maybe you're all fed up with churches, or with hypocrites, or whatever you've been looking at. My friend, why are you looking at them? Look at Jesus. What is it that you don't like about him? He loves you. He's done everything he can to save you. He died on the cross, and paid the price for your sins, and mine, and open, he has open harms, waiting for us to come to him. What is it that you don't like about Jesus? If you've never received him as your Savior, let me encourage you to do so. You can do it right now, right where you're at. You can say, dear Lord, I know I'm a sinner. I repent of my sin, and the best I know how, I receive Jesus as my Savior. And if you want to write us, or call, you do so. We'll try to help you, whatever we can, whatever way that we can. We'll try to get you into a good church near you, if you need that kind of help. Somewhere where you can grow, and know Jesus. Oh, remember, if you miss Jesus, you've missed everything. If we meet, and you forget me, you haven't lost much. But if you miss Jesus, you've missed everything. He's life. He that has the Son, has life, the scripture says. He that has not the Son, does not have life. So whatever you do, don't miss Jesus. Let me share a little bit with you more about love. You know, what is it sometimes that causes us not to love people? I believe so many times, the flesh gets in the way, and selfishness comes out. This self-righteousness, this thing like the Pharisees had, they got caught up in themselves. I was reading a little bit ago, about that young rich ruler. You remember him? It seems like I used that story so many times, about the young rich ruler. You know how he came to Christ. He's wanting to get to heaven, and the Lord asked him about keeping the commandments, and he said he kept all the commandments. I was talking with a man yesterday, and we talked about how he broke two of the commandments, when he refused to do what the Lord asked him to do, and possibly another one. But the Lord loved him. I'd never thought about this, but Mark had recorded in Mark 10, and I'm trying to get myself over there in Mark 10, and verse 21, I had never noticed this, but Mark was the only one that that recorded this, that said this, then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, one thing thou lackest, go thy way, sell whatever whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, take up the cross, and follow me. And he was sad at that saying, and went away greed, for he had great possessions. He was an idolater, and sometimes, you know, you and I, we can become idolaters. We can set ourself up as an idolater. We, as an idol, we love ourselves. This young man rejected Christ, and yet Christ still loved him. Let me ask you, what will it take to stop your love? What will it take to stop you from loving somebody? If something will stop you and me from loving somebody, then our love is flawed. It's not the love of Christ. The love of Christ continues on. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. God's love, my friend, will go on for all eternity. Do you know that if you reject Jesus as your Savior, you will not accept the price that he paid on the cross for you, and for your sins? And if you choose to go to hell, and you go to hell, and you stay there for all eternity, and it doesn't matter whether you believe there is a hell or not, it doesn't change the fact that there is a hell. God has said there is. For all eternity, while you're there, one of the things I believe that's going to be the torment for you, besides your separation from your friends and from your family that have received Christ and gone on to heaven, and your separation from God, one of the things I believe that's going to be a torment for you, for all eternity, is that you're going to know that God loves you, and that he did everything he could to save you from that place, and you chose to go there. For all eternity, he will never cease to love you, even though you have to experience his wrath because you refused his love. My friend, God is love, and if we dwell in him, then his love is going to be manifested in our lives. Who is it you don't love? I'm going to share some more things with you about this, maybe some things you haven't thought about, and we can go through some very, very hard things that will turn us against people, and maybe, I believe God, God's been teaching me about circumstances lately, God has allowed these people to come into your life just to show you what's in your heart. Reminds me of a story about how God wants us to have just pure childlike faith and love for people, how this drunkard was very cruel to his family, very cruel, a very mean man, and one day he accidentally shot his little boy, got drunk, shot his little boy, little boy went to the hospital, was dying, and the daddy came to him, and he was really broken over what he did, and the little boy said, Daddy, it's okay. I love you anyway. I always have, and I always will. Do you have that kind of childlike love, just where somebody can do something to you, even on purpose, intentionally, and all there is, is love that flows out of your life. My friend, that's God. God is love, that's all he is, and because he's love, that's why the scripture says God is good. Jesus Christ, who went about doing good, do you go about doing good, or do you go about seeing what all you can get done for you that's good? Looking out for number one, love. You know what Jesus said in John 13, 34, a new commandment I've given to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if, if you have love one to another. Oh, do you love? Do you have this type of love? Romans 12, 9 says, let love be without dissimilation. Some while back, several years ago, what that means is without hypocrisy. God showed me something about myself, and he's continuing, continuing to show me about myself, how deceitful my heart is, and how there's no good thing dwells in this old nature. But I had somebody come visit me, and oh, I was glad to have them, no complaint, glad to have them. They could, they interrupted my time, that was fine, great, I was glad to have them there. Then somebody else came, and I complained in my spirit, because it was an inconvenience to me, and God told me, he said, listen buddy, you're not to have this kind of hypocrisy. Let love be without dissimilation. Can you love the, the poor man as well as the rich man? Do you be like James? Do you put on an air and make special concessions for certain people, and others you don't? My friend, if you call yourself a Christian, that's not love. First Thessalonians 3, 12 says, and the Lord make you to increase and abound in love, one toward another, and toward all men, only as you're filled with the Spirit. And by the way, a lot of our emotional experiences, and the conferences, and things we go to, do not help us one bit be more godly. Only being Spirit filled, will help you and I to be godly, to be sensitive to others needs, and to reach out to those that need us. And God may be sending somebody your way, may have sent somebody your way, to make us more like him. He sent somebody that's hard to love. Why are they hard to love? Well, I'll tell you why they're hard to love, is because we're not dead to self. We're alive to self, and Jesus is dead as far as it goes in practical power in our lives. They take our time, they offend us, their kids wreck our house, they do things to our property, they, you know, they dent your car, whatever it is. And what's the result? We have a weak testimony, or none with that person. We don't win them to Christ. Reminds me of when I was over in Turkey, in the barracks, there was a some black men next to me, and they like to party about half the night, and play their music, and I didn't like their music. I didn't like to party like that. But I had a bad attitude, and I'd lay there in bed with the music pounding away on the wall, and after I just could take it so long, I'd get out of my bed and go over there and complain to them. And God showed me. He says, listen, you're not going to win these men. You can forget it. Your testimony is gone with them. That irritation caused you to lose out with them. And God has since taught me to use the weapon of love to break down areas of resistance, to break in on in the areas of problems, not to react with flesh, but to use the weapon of love. You know, this is one of the most powerful weapons that we have. You know, we're using the weapons of the flesh, but the weapons that God has given to us for our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. And the weapon of love is one of the most powerful weapons that you and I have. Are you using your weapon of love? Listen, I was reading in in Matthew 5, listen to this, Matthew 5, 43. You have heard that it had been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I, in Jesus, is speaking. I say unto you, love your enemies. Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. How about it? You doing it? My, what about despitefully use you? Who is it that is using you? Have you tried the weapon of love? Love breaks down barriers. And then he went on to say that you may be the children of your father, which is in heaven. Too many of us claim to be Christians, but yet we act like the devil. We live like the devil. We have unbelief. We have sin in our life. We hate, we're bitter, we're unforgiving. All those things come from the devil. Where is the character of God in your life? Is it there? Did you know that out of the fruits of the Spirit is love, joy, you know those things, peace, long-suffering, gentleness. Did you know that all of those things come out of love? All of those things come out of love. So if you have love, you're nothing. There's nothing there. What will happen if we love? I'll tell you what, there's going to be visible results. We'll have love for enemies, there'll be forgiveness. Do you know there's somebody, there's somebody that you've got a difference with, that you've not forgiven, and that God needs to do a work in their life. If you will forgive them with Christlike love, you will release them to God. And he will be able to work in their life. Your bitter spirit and your bitter attitude may be the very thing that's keeping God from working in somebody's life. You see, the problems in this world, God has problems with His children. This is why we need revival in the church, revival in America. And the problem isn't with the world, the problem is with God's children not being obedient. If you're not loving, you're disobedient. And so there's going to be results. Our enemies will become our friends, and I've seen this happen. And those we forgive will be indebted to us. We'll see them saved. You know, the Bible says, love never fails. Reminds me of a poem that I read by Elizabeth Barrett Browning one time entitled, I Loved Once. Listen to this, she said, they never loved who dreamed that they loved once. Love looks beyond the bounds of time and space. Love takes eternity in its embrace. But they never loved who dreamed that they loved once. Christ loves you, He loved you, and He will love you for all eternity. And if you're filled with Christ's love, there won't be anything that will stop that love from coming out of your life. You can't do anything to keep Him from loving you. He will love you even if you crucify Him on the cross. And that's why He could say, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. You cannot keep Him from loving you because He is love. That's all that will come out of His life to you. And that's what He wants for you and me, my friend, as believers. He just wants the love of Jesus to come out of our life. 1 Corinthians 13, 13, Love lasts for eternity and now abideth faith, hope, and love. These three, but the greatest of these is love. You know it might be good to turn back over to 1 Corinthians 13 and just go through some of those verses again before we close today. You just can't kill love. But you can sure shut it down if you're not careful. Reminds me one time of a man that had a neighbor that did something that he didn't like. Actually, the neighbor put up a building that he thought was too close to his property. And he went over and chewed him out, gave him what for, and actually it was just a few inches too close according to what he thought the rules were. And so he chewed the man out. The man called the city to find out and found out that he wasn't wrong. His building was right. There was never any restitution made. The man never went over to ask for forgiveness or apologize that he was wrong. That man will never, as far as I know, have a testimony to his neighbor about Jesus Christ until he makes that right. And if he does try to testify about Jesus, it won't be accepted because his life and his lips do not match up. And this is one of the things that God is showing us, is that our life and our lips had better match up. Or we're a hypocrite. Paul said in Galatians 5, 6, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision availeth anything, but faith which worketh by love. Did you know that my friend? You've been having trouble with faith in your life. You've been having trouble believing God to work. You've been having trouble in the area of love. They go together. Faith and love. Faith works by love. And if you love God, you can have faith in him. You can trust him. But if your faith is weak, then you look at your love. Out of our life, all the things that are good, whatever things are good, lovely, a good report, they come out of love. And listen to what Paul said in 1st Corinthians 13 again. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And my friend, you may be able to see correct doctrine and things that are wrong in other people's life. But if you don't have love, if that's missing in your life, you don't really love people and you can't love them and you can't administer to them in love. Nothing. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profiteth me nothing. Love suffereth long and is kind. Are you kind? Are you patient? Love envieth not, charity faunteth not itself. Love's not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly. How do you act? Seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never fails. How are you doing in the area of love? Well, until next time, I trust that God will continue to lift you up on eagles' wings, that God will bless you. And remember, Jesus Christ is all you need. Is he all you want? Till next time, may God bless you, my friend.