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is that we've come here to worship, to honor you, to love you, to fellowship with you and your people. In Jesus' name we pray. Everyone said, "Amen." Praise God.

Let's take a few moments to greet one another in the name of the Lord, and then we're going to come back and get into his word tonight. God bless you. It's in the name.

Yes, it is. There is a shelter where joy and peace abound. >> You can remain seated as we get into the word of the Lord tonight.

We're going to go to 1 John chapter 3 verses 16 through 18. Teach a little bit on a common but often misunderstood subject. 1 John 3:16, the word says, "By this we know love because he laid down his life for us.

And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. By this we know love. Verse 17, but whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?

My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but indeed and in truth. By this we know love because he did something. He laid down his life for us.

And we're instructed to do the same. Do not love in word or in tongue, but indeed and in truth. I have a very simple title for this lesson tonight.

Brother asked me for the title and I was like, "Well, I didn't have a better one." It's called love and lust. Sounds like a cheap soap opera, but I promise you that I know, I thought of that. Love and lust, that just sounds But the two words often get mixed up.

We need to know the difference, praise God. That's what we're going to talk about tonight. By this we know love because he laid down his life for us.

The need to experience love is perhaps the most basic and fundamental need of humanity. Even the toughest of tough guys may not want to admit it, but deep down in their hearts, deep down in their lives, every one of us need to experience love. People since the beginning of time have searched high and low to find true love.

Of course, my antivirus pops up right in the middle of my lesson here. Trying to get me to purchase something and I've been telling it no. Scripture declares that love is the greatest virtue.

And this is one point of scripture that almost universally all Christians would agree. We disagree about everything else, but this one point that God is love cuz the scripture says it just like that. 1 John 4 and 8, God is love.

It's not just an attribute, it's his very essence. Love is synonymous with God. The Greek word for love, agape, it means to have a warm regard or interest in the other.

By his very essence, God has regard and interest for you and for me. And that's important tonight. You know, it's very interesting.

Had a conversation with a an apostolic counselor and one of the things he said, it's very easy for people to say that God loves them, God loves so-and-so, but to say God loves me. For some reason, we we we struggle with that. And despite humanity's unending quest to find true love, humanity often fails in this quest.

And again, why? We can go to the Bible and find the answer. Scripture teaches us in Genesis 1 that we were created in the image of God.

In other words, we reflect God's likeness. And if God is love, then you and I, we were created with the propensity to love. That is in our DNA, so to speak.

But there's one problem, and that's sin. You see, the propensity to love and to know what true love is and to experience true love has become perverted through our rebellion at the garden of Eden. And because of that, it is only through Jesus Christ that we come to know and experience the complete definition and experience of love.

You see, what the world often calls love is not love. We're going to get to that here in a moment. I would submit to us tonight that the world is ignorant of love because the world, many people, do not know Jesus.

Because when we get a true revelation of who Jesus is and we have an enduring relationship with him that begins when we're born again of water and spirit, and then it continues as we walk with him in the spirit daily, we will experience true love. Amen. By this we know love because he laid down his life for us.

You see, God robed himself in flesh, came and walked on this earth to show us what true love is all about. The entire life and ministry of Jesus, which culminated in his death at Calvary and the resurrection on the third day, is a demonstration of true love. He laid down his life for us.

What I want us to understand here tonight, that was an action. He died. He was buried.

He rose again. Concrete deeds. Actions.

You see, love is an action. Everybody say action. Love is an action.

The word itself is a verb. It's something that we do. Love is not feelings of happiness.

Love is not feelings of pleasure or ecstasy. Love is not an emotion. Though positive emotions and desires do accompany love, in and of itself, love is not an emotion.

Love is an action. An action that prefers the other over ourselves. We read in our opening passage, by this we know love because he laid down his life for us.

Jesus did something for us. And then the second half of that scripture says that we should also lay down our lives for the brethren. In other words, the calling goes even further.

We should be willing to sacrifice for our brothers and sisters. Nowhere in that definition is there anything about self. It's always about the other.

And my oh my, how we live in a society that is obsessed with self. Me, me, me. The me generation.

But yet scripture directs and guides us to the exact opposite. Love is an action. The arrest and trial of Jesus, that was not a happy event or a pleasurable event event.

But we know that Jesus, he chose to endure it. He endured it to demonstrate his love for us. We look at Matthew chapter 26.

This was during the arrest of Jesus. Listen to what Jesus says. Verse 50 of Matthew 26, but Jesus said to him, "Friend, why have you come?" Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took him.

And suddenly one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew a sword, struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear. But Jesus said to him, "Put your sword in its place, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. Pay attention to verse 53 here.

"Or do you think that I cannot now pray to my father and he will provide me more than 12 legions of angels? How then could the scriptures be fulfilled that it must happen thus?" You see, his trial was one of false accusation and abuse. It was a sham.

The religious authorities, they charged him with blasphemy, they spat upon him, they beat him. A very ugly scene. And yet the Bible says that this is love.

I I I When Valentine's Day comes around and all the hearts and the flowers and candies in the store, you know, that that's what we picture love to be. But the Bible says that Jesus' trial and and the torture that he endured and the suffering that he took, that is love. The Roman soldiers, they stripped Jesus naked.

They smashed a crown of thorns upon his head. They beat him. They mocked him as as the king of the Jews.

They They drove nails in his hands and his feet. They hung him on the cross to die a criminal's death, one who was innocent. It was not an emotional thrill.

It was not the satisfaction of a personal craving. Rather, it was emotional agony and excruciating pain. And the Bible calls this love.

Think about that. Love is not a feeling. Love is an action.

Love is the preference of the other over self. Love is the pouring out of self. To think that Jesus could have called 12 legions of angels and wiped everyone out and done away with them all.

He could have come off that cross. But he had a greater mission. John 15:13 says, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends." And Jesus did not lay down his life just for a single individual, but for the entire world.

Galatians 3:13 says the following about what Jesus did. It says, "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree." You see, the law states that you and I, we are sinners.

The law declares that we are guilty as charged. And the law imposes the sentence of death upon us for our rebellion and our disobedience to God. Adam and Eve ate the fruit and they brought the curse of sin upon all humanity.

And sin makes it difficult to experience true love. I hope you are with me tonight. I know I'm not shouting and juking and jiving just yet.

Maybe that'll happen in a minute, but I I think sometimes we have to step back and and look at the world around us and you know, sometimes we ask ourselves, "Why is everything so dysfunctional? And why is it that people just hate each other?" And you know, people are pulling out guns and shooting each other during road rage incidents and all these things that are happening. And nobody has an explanation for it.

But the Bible, the the the ancient book that's been around for thousands of years tells us that that the problem is sin. It is sin that has separated us from God. The wages of sin is death.

And it's this very issue of sin that keeps us from having wholesome relationships. A relationship with God, a relationship with spouse, relationship with children. Somewhere along the line, there is the sin problem.

History is rife with broken and troubled relationships. Jesus took this curse upon himself and paid the price for our freedom. To To redeem literally means to buy back.

He paid. And he And he brought us back from this curse that was brought on by Satan's lies all the way back in the garden. It is through this relationship with Jesus we can experience true love.

True love. The quest and search for love comes to an end when we come to know Jesus and the power of his resurrection. And this should never get old to us.

I I'm afraid that there are even people that come to church and they go through the motions and perhaps they know the doctrine, but you know, is there an authentic relationship? Is Is there an authentic connection? To say, "You know what?

I know that I am loved by my creator. I am loved by God. He loves me and I love him." Why is it that we struggle with this message of Jesus's love?

It's because we live in a fallen world that is not governed by love, but it is governed by lust. The world substitutes lust for love. And of course, that's why in society and culture today, we have a perverted view, if you will, of true love.

I mentioned earlier that love is not an emotion. It's not feelings of happiness or pleasure or ecstasy. Yet, in the world, these things are viewed as love.

Descriptions of love in secular music and in media are almost always portrayed as feelings, not actions. And all these emotions that are sung about and are portrayed in the media, more than often than not, they can be associated with lust and not love. Let me take a moment and explain this word lust because in our English vernacular, the word lust has a pejorative meaning.

We often think it refers to sinful sexual desires or degrading passions. But, if you actually go back to the Greek word for lust, the word epithumia, it simply means a desire, a craving, a longing. The word itself is neutral.

In other words, the the word desire, it can be positive or it can be negative depending on the context. And so, when we talk about desires, that's not limited to just sexuality. You know, we we can desire food.

You know, get a hankering for ice cream. I've eaten my fair share of that the last few days. We bought some Tillamook ice cream and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Right? We can crave and desire material things. We can crave and desire attention.

We can crave and desire friendships. Power. We can even crave Jesus.

As individuals, every one of us, we have a unique and complex appetite of various desires and cravings based upon our genetics and our upbringing. Now, I hope you see where we're going with this. We We can have desires that are good.

We can have desires that are bad. Good desires can become bad if we allow them to. But, desire is simply that.

It is It is a feeling. It's not love. What I want And I think us as Pentecostals, we really we really need to get a hold of this because we're we're people of emotion.

And I'm not preaching against emotion. When when when we come to church and we're shouting and dancing and running the aisles and clapping hands and leaping for joy, we get excited about the Lord and that's a great thing. But, can I tell you that when you're going through the valley of the shadow of death and it seems that the gates of hell have arrived at your doorstep, can I tell you that God loves you just as much in the valley as he does on the mountain?

God loves you just as much when you're sick and you're broke and you're hurting. He loves you just as much then as when you got your hands raised and you're shouting and dancing and enjoying the blessings of God. What I want us to know is that THE FAITHFULNESS OF GOD DOES NOT CHANGE BASED ON HOW WE FEEL.

YOU YOU MIGHT NOT HAVE FELT LIKE COMING TO CHURCH TONIGHT, but you came and you're here. And can I tell you that God is just as faithful now in the season of struggle as he is in the season of bounty. Faithfulness of God doesn't change.

The love of God doesn't change. Praise God. AND SOMETIMES WE'VE got to go through it to learn it.

And there's those times when we just don't feel it. We've got to do we've been taught to do. And we've got to keep marching forward.

And we've got to put the left to the right to the left to the right. He's filled us up enough. He fills us He fills us He fills us and then it's time to go out for a test.

That wilderness experience. That dry desert. That that place of temptation.

But even there he is still God. Amen. James chapter 1 verse 14 and 15.

Reading from the New King James. It says, "But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin when it is full grown brings forth death." Desires of themselves are not sin.

Experiencing temptation alone is not sin. Can I tell you if you walk for God long enough, you're going to go through a season of temptation? A season of testing.

Even Jesus went through 40 days in the wilderness. And he was fasting at the same time he was being tested. We can miss a meal and we get hangry.

Can you imagine 40 days? And that old devil working you over? Yeah.

Exactly what was happening. There's no doubt that we'll have seasons where we wrestle with desires that are contrary to God's plan for our lives. And like I said, there's even innocent desires that can become sinful if not controlled.

You know, we got to eat, but you know, we can eat ourselves into an oblivion and the Bible calls that gluttony. Just saying desires are fleeting. They come and they go.

The Bible calls us to govern those desires. And and how do we govern them? It's through the love of God.

We get a revelation of who God is. You think about Jesus' temptation. I'm planning to talk about this tonight, but we've already went there.

I want to go back there again. When he was confronted by the enemy three different times. I can't imagine that he felt strong physically.

He hadn't eaten. He's in the desert. You know, sometimes we don't want to go to battle unless we're feeling it.

You know, I've preached and pastored enough years to know, you know, I like getting behind the pulpit when you just feel it. You feel like you're going to explode under the anointing. But then there's times you don't feel any anointing.

But guess what? You still got to get up and do it. Right?

So we we What I'm trying to tell us is that we can't always go based on what we feel. But based on what's been revealed to us. Jesus responded those three times of temptation with it is written.

There's just times that we have to stand on the word and say it is written. God, you said the righteous would never be forsaken nor seed begging bread. Can I tell you can go to God in prayer and remind him of what he said?

So if you're going through it today, you can remind God. God, you said in your word you would never leave us nor forsake us. God, you said in your word that if you be for us, who could be against us?

GOD, YOU SAID IN YOUR WORD that no weapon formed against us shall prosper. Amen. See, that's why we got to get that word in us.

Because you know, when we're young in the Lord and new in the Lord, you know, we can live off that emotional high for a while. And I'm not I hope nobody misunderstands me. I'm not preaching against emotions and and feeling.

I mean, that's part of who we are. But what I want us to know is that it goes deeper than that. Because it rains upon the just and the unjust.

Difficulty and hardships come even to those who love God and are called according to his purpose. We have to know that even then his love for us it remains. You know, the world says to follow your heart.

People call that love. But can I tell you that following your heart is probably one of the worst pieces of advice that you could ever follow. Because our feelings can mislead us.

And our feelings can even deceive us at times. You know what disturbs me to hear you know, when people a marriage breaks up and they say something like I I I just don't I don't feel in love anymore. You don't feel.

People walk away from God quit the church and quit living for him. I I just I don't I don't feel God's presence anymore. Well, maybe it's just a season that you don't feel.

But he remains true and faithful. I'm going to read to you this here. We're getting getting close to the end here tonight.

First John back to first John chapter 3. We read verses 16 through 18 in the opening, but we're going to go to verse 19. And I'm going to read this in the New Living Translation.

Cuz I feel like this gives us the best rendition of this to to understand what John is trying to tell us here. In the New Living Translation, the scripture says "Our actions will show that we belong to the truth. So, we will be confident when we stand before God.

Even if we feel guilty. God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything." Can I tell you that one of the things the enemy will try to do when you're going through a season of struggle? He'll try to tell you that you you've sinned, that you're not living right, that you're backslid.

These are lies of the enemy. Or, that you're being judged by God. You're being punished.

I've had the enemy tell me that lie recently. And you know, how do I know it's not true? Because I know what his word says.

This I'm talking about some depth tonight, to know the love of God. His love is not superficial. His love is not plastic.

Okay, he hasn't brought you this far to throw you to the curb and go find someone else. No, he's in it for the LONG HAUL. HE'S CALLED YOU AND CHOSEN YOU.

HE'S PUT HIS BLOOD on you, his name. He's filled you with the spirit. He's with you even till the end of the world.

PRAISE GOD. LET'S give the Lord a hand praise tonight. Great is thy faithfulness.

Praise God, don't fall for the lies. Verse 21 and 22, "Dear friends, if we don't feel guilty, we can come to God with bold confidence. In other words, sometimes we'll feel guilty, sometimes we won't.

Feelings, they change. Seasons change. God remains the same.

Verse 22, we will receive from him whatever we ask because we obey him and do the things that please him. God is greater than our feelings. What does all this have to do with the love of God?

That's what we're talking about, love and lust, love and desire. The love of God does not change based on how we feel or what state we may be in at the present moment. Backsliders that are out there tonight, God loves them still.

And they need to know when they come back to the house of God that God loves them and we love them. Amen. His love remains.

God always prefers us. The Lord is with us for better or for worse. He's with us for richer or poorer.

Don't believe this prosperity gospel stuff. That's the thing that's wrong with prosperity. They say, "Well, God's only with you if you're rich.

God's only with you if you're healthy. God's only with you if you're doing better." That That's not Bible. The cross tells us that's not true.

He's better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and health. And when death comes, it will only be temporary because Jesus has conquered death and the grave and he's given you and I the same victory. Praise God.

The Bible says the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain will be caught up. Praise God. Caught up to meet him in the air.

By this we know love because he laid down his life for us. He gave himself. Love never fails.

We need his love today, church. We need his love. How we feel, what we're going through, our emotions, our desires, anything else for that matter cannot override God's love for us.

I want to leave us with a passage that I'm sure you're familiar with. Romans chapter 8, and we're going to read verses 35 through 39. This really just puts the cherry on top of God's love for us.

Paul asked the rhetorical question. He says, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Who or what for that matter shall tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword?

In other words, we're true believers. No matter what comes our way, who shall separate us from the love of God?" Verse 36 says, "It is written, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. I want you to take that home tonight. I want you to get up with that tomorrow.

We are more than conquerors. I believe it's Kirk Franklin has a song more than conquerors. Maybe turn that on tomorrow.

More than conquerors. Through him who loved us. For I am persuaded.

This is what This is This is where we have to be tonight. We have to be persuaded. That's what I'm trying to do here tonight.

I hope I'm persuading you a little bit in this message. I am persuaded, Paul says, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, nothing The devil himself can show up in your bedroom tonight. Paul said, "Nothing." A bright light coming with A DIFFERENT MESSAGE.

PAUL SAID, "NOTHING." shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Praise God. Let's stand tonight.

His love. Oh, let it abound in us. And if you don't have the love of God, and you want to know about this, man, you can just pray to him and say, "God, I want your love in my life.

And forgive me of my sins. Forgive me of my rottenness. I just I I want to be who you want me to be.

Pray it in your own way. Amen. Praise God.

Who shall be able to separate us from the love of God? Amen. Let's close out in a word of prayer and just let this word sink into our spirit tonight.

Father, we are so grateful and appreciative to know true love. And we look to your example, robing yourself in flesh, coming to this dying and rising again, giving up yourself. And I pray, Lord, let your love saturate us tonight.

Let your love settle down deep in each of us. Father, we desire to be true believers. God, have an authentic and genuine relationship with you.

I pray that for every one of us here tonight, Lord, that we would grow in you. God, that our roots would go deeper in you. That our love for you would abound.

And God, that you would carry us through any and everything that we might be going through in this place tonight. Bring us through it and let us come out stronger. Let us come out, Lord, victorious.

In Jesus' name we pray. And everyone said, "Amen." Praise God. The Lord bless you.

Continue to keep Pastor Dan in your prayers. I'm sure an update will go out tomorrow after everything's transpired. Amen.

The love of God, nothing will separate us. Amen. Lord bless you tonight in Jesus' name.