The deepest love: the two shall be one.
Listen to Psalm139. Just listen to this. Just listen to what's there in your Bible about intimacy with God.
Old Testament. Hebrew Scriptures.
Where can I go from your spirit?
Where can I run away from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens you're there.
If I make my bed in the depths of hell...you're there.
Even there your right hand is going to hold me close.
If I say surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me, even the darkness won't be dark to you.
The night will shine like the day for darkness is light to you.
For you created my innermost being.
You wove me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful.
And my soul knows it well.
My frame wasn't hidden from you when I was made in secret.
When I was woven together in the depth of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed substance, body.
All the days that were ordained for me were written in your book before there was any one of them.
How precious to me are your thoughts oh God.
How great is the number of those thoughts.
If I were to count those thoughts, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
And when I wake up, I'm still with you.
That is intimate.
That's intimate.
He knows. It says He knows our frame.
He knows we're just...He understands.
God's love is the most personal love.
And sometimes we get so caught up in ourselves and so wrapped up in ourselves,
Or in this culture that's so impersonal; fast food culture,
drive through culture. They actually have a drive through marriage chapel.
They can't even wait. You know there's no healing and
How many people did Messiah actually touch?
He's the God who touches.
And He's the God who not just touched,
Who is touched. Who was touched by people; they touched him and they were healed.
There's a radical thing; that's a radical. You don't see that in other faiths. God became touchable and touched us, and was...He touched the leper; the who had, was so,
was so unclean and so under this curse of this, this
contagious disease. they couldn't touch anybody. They weren't allowed to go near anybody
when you came hear them they had to shout out "Unclean!" "Unclean"!
And yet He touches him!
It says Jesus says, you know the guy runs up to him and you know you he shouldn't have done it, he runs up to the Rabbi and he says "Lord
You know You can heal me,
if you're willing
And Messiah says, "I am willing,"
and touches the leper.
Now you say wait a minute, that's against the law. He touched an unclean thing. No! The moment he touched him he wasn't unclean anymore.
But if a leper can touch, can come to God that it could to God, that is can come to Him, and how much more can you come to him,
with whatever the thing is...
Healing comes in this touch.
But we have to let him touch us.
Touch whatever has to be touched.
What else is it about a mother's love?
You know, sometimes you see Hasidic Jews, Orthodox Jews, wearing the whole, the whole thing,
And they're called Hasidic. Do you know why they're called Hasidic?
From the Hebrew word "chesed". Try it.
Chesed is the word that's used in the Bible for loving kindness.
Mercy
and faithful love; the, the love, where it says the lovingkindness of the Lord is forever and ever that's chesed.
His covenantal love, His faithful love that never gives up; Faithful love; it's about faithful love.
Psalm 92 says, Your love in the morning, your faithfulness by night.
God's love is faithful.
Faithful love.
That means we, like a mother's love, it's faithful, tends to be faithful than to be the most faithful.
So in the same way, we need to have love that is faithful; not like the culture of this; not like what's in the culture.
What does it mean to love? It's not about I just feel love or not. It's about I'm gonna, I'm gonna love no matter what; whether I feel it or whether I don't.
True love is love that stays true over time.
Love that stays true over testing, hard times.
You don't get married to get blessed if you know what God says, and you know the Bible.
You get married to bless.
It's a ministry.
You made a vow.
Fulfill it. You know you realize it, in some ways, you know divorce can be a falsehood because you made a vow, or someone made a vow.
You end up breaking your word. Faithfulness is staying true.
Faithfulness is so lacking in our culture.
Faithfulness in God's house; faithfulness to serve, you know.
Faithfulness to your word, to our word. We give our word. I'm going to do it and you don't show up. That's not faithfulness that's unfaithfulness.
Let your yes be yes; let your no be no.
Faithfulness to God; faithfulness in prayer. That's the love of God for us.
So if He's faithful to us, we need to be faithful to others.
And we need to be faithful to Him.
And remember: in Hebrew the word for faith
and faithful are the same.
So if you say you have faith you have to be faithful.
What is being faithful? You're full of faith. If you're full of faith, it's not just about, let's say "Hey I can claim this and claim that." That's not what it is.
If you have faith then you're going to be faithful.
What else is it about a mother's love?
It starts out with pregnancy.
That's the beginning of motherhood.
The beginning of a mother's love. It shows you what kind of love a mother is to have. What kind of love is that?
The fact that the mother's being is existing, in a sense to, to make this life; to protect this life; have it come alive.
Have it nurtured.
Her own life is being used to bless this life,
to give of her blood, give of her everything.
That's what motherhood is based on.
When a mother, then when the baby is born and the mother nurses the baby with her breasts,
she's giving of her own life.
What kind of love is it?
Sacrificial love.
Selfless love. It's a picture of God's love.
We have again the idea of God being harsh. God is sacrificial.
How do we know that?
When He came down, what did he become? He became the sacrifice.
So it means His love is sacrificial. that's the nature of His love.
What you see there is just, is a manifestation of what He is all the time which is giving of Himself.
We think of Him just as the judge. He's the one who goes into the place of the one who's being judged;
as a mother would protect or give herself for her children.
If not for the sacrificial love of God we would have nothing.
Remember God doesn't just love you,
it cost Him to love you.
He gave everything to love you.
Everything so you wouldn't be judged; everything so you'd be saved.
A mother's love gives to her baby.
God gives Himself.
So we're not just saved by love because he loved us, we are saved by sacrificial love. That's the whole reason why there's a sacrificial system.
There was in Israel. For all that whole thing is, is, is giving witness to one fact that God is sacrificial. His love is sacrificial. His love is sacrificial. It's giving and of Himself.
So therefore it says...