Matthew 6:9-13 The lord's prayer
“I’ll start by telling you the truth about me and then tell you about the Truth.”
Testimony - quick version
I had never read the Bible, wasn’t attending church, and definitely wasn’t looking for Him. He was looking for me.
I brought nothing to Jesus but my sins, my shame, my worries, my fears, my doubts, and all my problems. All my brokenness all my uncertainties and ignorance. I knew nothing of what real love is and after all the treatment, hospitals, counseling, pills, and self-help I was still broken and headed for death. I had no hope, no peace, no joy, no love and I was completely and utterly lost and in darkness.
But Jesus came to seek and save the lost.
He is the Light of the world.
Luke 19:10, John 8:12
“We love because He first loved us.”
1 John 4:19
He says to us, I have called you by name, you are mine. You don’t have to fear. I am with you. Come and follow me and I will teach you how to fish for people. There are others like you, others just like you who need to know that I am here. I’m always here. You are never alone and there is always hope. Call on me, come to me.
I love you, I have always loved you.
My grace is all you need.
Isaiah 43:1, Mark 1:17, Luke 4:18,
Jeremiah 33:3, Matthew 11:28, John 15:9
2 Corinthians 12:9
Pray and ask for open hearts and open ears. Pray for our minds to be opened to the scriptures.
We are born in sin and we are separated from the life of God and our hearts are desperately sick, we are selfish and evil and have no good in us. We can do good things but according to God's righteous and holy standard, we all fall short, we all miss the mark. We all have sinned.
Jeremiah 17:9, Romans 3:23, Romans 7:17
Jesus said “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick”, He came to save sinners. God made Him, who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Luke 2:17, 1 Timothy 1:15,
2 Corinthians 5:21
God loves us, He made us, we are His.
All souls belong to Him and Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. He takes no pleasure in seeing anyone perish and wants all to come to repentance and a knowledge of the truth.
Psalm 100:3, Ezekiel 18:4, 32, romans 6:10
1 John 2:2, John 1:9, 2 peter 3:9, 2 Timothy 2:23
Some of us WERE God's enemies and some still are. He’s not fighting against you, He is kind to the ungrateful and evil men. God loves his enemies and desires reconciliation.
Matthew 5:44-47, Romans 5:8-10
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Nailed to the cross, Jesus prayed,
“Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”
Luke 23:34
“You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!”
Romans 5:6-10
So Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless and do not curse. Pray for those who persecute you.
Matthew 5:44
“At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived, and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.”
Titus 3:3-7
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
1 John 4:7-11
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
John 3:16-18
“Truly truly I say to you, He who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
John 5:24
“Mercy triumphs over judgement.”
James 2:13
Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life and no one can come to the Father except through me.”
John 14:6
“Whoever will call on the name of the Lord Jesus will be saved.”
Romans 10:13
“For God is good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call to you.”
Psalms 86:5
“Let the wicked forsake his way And the unrighteous man his thoughts, And let him return to the Lord, And He will have compassion on him, And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.”
Isaiah 55:7
Jesus is calling all people everywhere to come.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:31-39
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34-35