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God's Gift of Love

1/26/2020

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God's love is truly a gift! If it were not a gift and we could muster up or work hard to attain love; then this wouldn't be a big deal. But we have no hope of gaining true love and living it in our daily life unless God gives it to us as a gift. So it is a big deal! 
When we talk about our walk with Jesus; often we speak of temper. And you may be saying temper is no big deal; your making too much out of it. I don't think we can make too much of it. It is like a clock. If the hands are not moving, or pointing the wrong way; we immediately know that something in the clock is not working properly. Temper is just like that! Temper is proof whether the love of Jesus fills our heart. Now, we may be able to keep a smile on our face and be sweet at church and prayer meeting. But what about when your wife or husband pushes those buttons that are so...annoying? Or you trip over your kids bike that they left in the walk way; and you fall and scrap your shin? If we treat our loved ones with less love and respect then we do those at church, or strangers at the grocery store; then we can shout hallelujah that God has prepared for you and me a wonderful redemption in Jesus! He longs to fill our lives with the supernatural! Are we longing for it? Are we asking for it? Are we expecting it? Jesus has promised He will give it to us through Him living in us; "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." Galatians 2:20 
Then we have the tongue! We live in a country that gives us freedom of speech. We pride ourselves on speaking our mind, because it is our right! 
But if we have been crucified with Jesus. If He is living within us as He has offered to do; then let us every day pray the prayer; "Lord shut my mouth unless I speak in tender love." How often when we are at work, at church, or at home, do we find ourselves criticizing, judging, and speaking unloving and unkind words about another child of God? 
Friends, it must be in our daily life; how we treat those that hate us, or those that will love us anyway; that the fruit of the Spirit is love! It is our privilege as Christians to prove our love for Jesus; and show our families, friends and the world what a life looks like when we have been crucified with Jesus and He is living in our life! Because Jesus is the gift! Him living His life in and through us! 
I love you! 
Brad

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Mankind Needs Love

1/18/2020

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We have been discussing love, and God is Love. This week I would like to consider how and why Mankind Needs Love. 
In fact, love is our one great need! That was the very thing that Jesus came to accomplish: to restore love to this sin sick world. To restore love to me and you! And when man sinned, why was it that he sinned? He sought self instead of God. That is the simple truth! It always comes back to self, doesn’t it? Adam at once blames Eve for his sin. Just that quick sin destroys the love in their hearts. And then we see in just a few short years Cain murders his brother Able. Again and again since then we have seen how sin has robbed the world of love. Now, we do see glimpses of love shine through even after all the damage. But one of the worst things sin did to mankind was to make us selfish. Because, selfishness cannot love. Wherever we see self poke up it’s ugly head, true love is destroyed. Thankfully Jesus came down from heaven to show us what true love from the Father looks like. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” Jesus came to show us what love really is, and lived a life of love here upon this dark world. He showed us true compassion even to His enemies, and died for a world that really just wanted it to be all about them. Jesus Spirit of love came to banish selfishness and envy, pride and self promotion, and says, “I will give you the abundant life. I will put in your hearts the Spirit of love.” 
The book that I am using as an outline for this study, Absolute Surrender puts it this way, 
“And what was the preparation for the promise of the Holy Spirit? You know that promise as found in the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel. But remember what precedes in the thirteenth chapter. Before Christ promised the Holy Spirit, He have a new commandment, and about that new commandment He said wonderful things. One thing was: “Even as I have loved you, so Love ye one another.” To them His dying love was to be the only law of their conduct and intercourse with each other. What a message to those fisherman, to those men full of pride and selfishness! “Learn to love each other,” said Christ, “as I have loved you.” And by the grace of God they did it. When Pentecost came, they were of one heart and one soul. Christ did it for them.” Page 24 
Friends, my only hope is if Jesus does it for me! Jesus has called us to dwell and walk in love. He tells us that if a man hates you, love them anyway! True love from Jesus cannot be conquered by anything or anybody. The more someone hates us the more love triumphs through it all and the more we show off Jesus to the world. This is the love that Jesus asked His disciples and us to show to a sin sick world. 
It was Jesus who said, “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” 
Jesus is telling us, “I give you a badge, and that badge is Love.” The only way that people will truly see Jesus, is that we wear this badge of love. 
Friends, let’s ask Jesus to do this for us to completely surrender ourselves to Him, so He can give us this badge of love. 
I love you! 
Brad

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God is Love

1/11/2020

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Last week we looked at how the Fruit of the Spirit is Love in relation to our surrender. And so, why is the Fruit of the Spirit love? It is because God is Love! So, what does that really mean? 
Well, one of the many things that we know about our wonderful God is that He loves to communicate with us. He loves to let us know how much He loves us. And He wants nothing but the very best for each and everyone of us. You see, God has no selfishness, He keeps nothing to Himself. God’s very nature is to always be giving. Literally everything God does is for the good of His creation. It is because God is Love! Even though He is the God of the universe He keeps nothing for Himself, because He delights to pour out His love on us. His love is so great that He sent us His Son who He had spent eternity past with so He would not lose us! That thought makes me want to yell Hallelujah! My God is awesome! Don’t you feel that way? 
One of the old church fathers said it this way, “We cannot better understand the Trinity than as a revelation of divine love — the Father, the Loving One, the Fountain of Love; the Son, the Beloved One, the Reservoir of Love, in whom the love was poured out; and the Spirit, the living love united both and then overflowed into this world. The Spirit of Pentecost, the Spirit of the Father, and the Spirit of the Son is love. And when the Holy Spirit comes to us and to other men, will He be less a Spirit of Love than He is in God? It cannot be; He cannot change His nature. The Spirit of God is Love, and the Fruit of the Spirit is Love.” 
When we get even a glimpse of our wonderful, awesome God how can we not give Him our absolute surrender. 
I love you! 
Brad 

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The Fruit of the Spirit is Love!

1/1/2020

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As we continue to look at what it means to Walk With Jesus and Surrender ourselves completely, we will especially focus on how love influences our surrender. Today I would like to consider how The Fruit of the Spirit is Love! And how a life filled with the Holy Spirit will show itself in our daily Christian walk. 
In the Old Testament we find the Holy Spirit often came upon people as a divine Spirit to show them the will of God, or to accomplish God’s will, but He didn’t dwell in them. I can’t help but wonder as I consider my own life, and your lives, if we wouldn’t prefer that Old Testament version of the Holy Spirit over the New Testament gift of the indwelling Spirit that animates and renews the whole life. You see when God gives the Holy Spirit, His great desire is to create in each of us a Holy character. He offers a Holy mind and an unselfish, loving spiritual disposition. Andrew Murray makes this short statement in his book Absolute Surrender, 
“I must have the Holy Spirit sanctifying my whole inner life if I am really to live for God’s glory.” Page 19 
As we look back at the disciples, and Jesus promise to send the Holy Spirit, we see Him giving them this gift to be witnesses, and then they received the Holy Spirit in such power that He took possession of their lives, and they became Holy men and women in every aspect of their lives. It was the filling of the Spirit in them that caused people to call them Christians. The Holy Spirit filled them with such love that everyone saw it. It gave their lives power that turned the world on end. 
Galatians 5:22 tells us, “The Fruit of the Spirit is Love.” 
We read that “Love is the fulfilling of the law” and we need to ask ourselves, has this been our daily habit to seek being filled with the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Love? Has it been our experience that we are becoming more and more loving every day because the Spirit is dwelling in our life? This should be our greatest expectation in our walk with Jesus, that the Holy Spirit come into our lives as a Spirit of Love. I pray that I can get hold of this simple truth that the Fruit of the Spirit is Love, and that love takes possession of our lives when we are filled with this Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to every one of us. 
God can and will bless our Wrangell Church beyond belief when we are filled with this love. It is when we as a body pull together that we are strong. In the time of the great religious wars when Holland stood up so nobly against Spain, one of their mottoes was: “Unity gives strength.” 
Andrew Murray makes an observation on this very thing, 
“It is only when God’s people stand as one body, one before God in the fellowship of love, one toward another in deep affection, one before the world in love that the world can see—it is only then that they will have power to secure the blessing which they ask of God.” Absolute Surrender page 21 
It’s like a pitcher of water, if you crack it into pieces it can’t be filled. You might be able to take a little piece of it and dip out a little water, but if you want the pitcher full it has to be whole. This is true of Christ Church as well. I ask you to pray with me that we will allow Jesus to melt us together into one by the power of the Holy Spirit as He did at Pentecost, when He made the disciples of one heart in the Spirit of love. “The Fruit of the Spirit is Love.” As we surrender ourselves to Jesus, the Holy Spirit will come and teach us how to love more and more. 
I love you! 
Brad

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    Pastor Brad

    Pastor Brad Traxler is the pastor of the Wrangell SDA Church. Brad Traxler is the husband of forty years to Cheryl, father to Kimberly and Ryan, and grandfather to Brad, Kevin, William, Eamon, Zairhen, Seraphina, and Zeelyah. He holds a BA in Theology and has been pastoring churches for twenty years. The greatest passion of His life has been to share Jesus. 

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