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Bibleline Bibleline, here God’s word on Bibleline, here God’s truth on Bibleline. Welcome to Bibleline with Dr. Ralph Yankee Arnold, pastor of Calvary Community Church in Tampa, Florida, clearly declaring the gospel of Jesus Christ through the radio and the internet. Your regular prayers and monthly support make it possible for Bibleline to continue on the air. You can reach us toll free at 1-800-576-3771. Online donations may be made by clicking on the donations link on the BibleLineMinistries.org homepage. We pray that you will enjoy our commitment to the clear gospel of Jesus Christ and that today’s concluding message of this teaching will be a blessing to you and your family.

Serving the Lord is using the power of influence that you have. in your life for somebody else for the cause of Christ. So everybody, and you can see certain people that have a need and you try to be there for them. And sometimes you don’t know exactly what to say. There’s a lot of people in this whole world that are hurting in a lot of different ways. And sometimes we can get so busy we just don’t have time to do anything for anybody.

If you ever heard somebody say, my plate is full and I have no more room. Well, I’ve got a full plate sometime, but sometime we’d get maybe need a bigger plate. I’d like to put more on the plate sometime. If we’re going through the lines over there and think, what are these sure small plates? I might have to come back for seconds. And some of those people walk out of that room, I mean, from those tables, and that thing stacked high like this.

And you say, why don’t they run it? Because they’re not going back for seconds. They’re going to get it all the first time. Look at the top of the next page. Number 12, love is being willing to always ask for forgiveness and always been committed to grant forgiveness when it’s requested. If you wrong somebody ask for forgiveness. If somebody asked you grant forgiveness. Number 13, love is recognizing the high value of trust in a relationship and being faithful to your promise and true to your word.

I remember years ago, a man’s word was his bond. And whenever you said something, that was it, or you shook on it. Well, that worked today. But most people’s word is not their bond anymore. The Lord says, let your Yab’e’a in your nay-nay, in other words mean what you say. Learn to be careful in your words what you promise. I actually have people that promise me the world because they knew that’s what I wanted to do and so they promised they’d do it and then they couldn’t do it because they really didn’t have a heart setting but they were just I can do that I can do that I can do that okay you can do it and then they don’t get it done why because they want to please you so well and pleasing you means agreeing with you But they don’t understand that whenever you say that, that means you’re

obligating yourself to what? To keep your word and do it. So not everybody does. So what do you do? Well, you’ve got to gun and shoot them. No? You forgive them. Not everybody is going to rise to your expectation. Some people are willing, but the flesh is weak. They want to, but they don’t always fulfill. Have you ever promised something and you didn’t come through with it? Ever? Well, there’s other people just like that. Try to believe this, that the majority of people want to do right and they mean no harm.

And sometimes people say things they really didn’t mean to say or do something they didn’t think it through. Is that possible? Is it possible? I think it’s possible. So learn how to be true to your word. Number 14, love is speaking kindly and gently, even in moments of disagreement, refusing to attack the other person’s character or assault their intelligence. You don’t need to do that. Number 15, love is being unwilling to flatter, lie, manipulate, or deceive in anyway in order to co-op the other person into giving you what you want or doing something your way.

If you ever talk somebody into doing something you wish you hadn’t have, I have tried my best to stay out of this thing called matchmaking. Have you ever heard of matchmaking? What is matchmaking? That’s somebody who I know who’s perfect for you, well you’re not the one that has to live with them. Now sometimes you’ll strike gold and it’s a good, good idea. I remember we had a guy named Jim Bollinger Jr. He went to Florida Bible College, his dad went down there to Bible College.

I led him both to the Lord. But he came back and he started chasing this girl we had in our college and I mean she was working in a Christian school. Her name was Anne and Mitchell and Buddy he went after her like a Martin to a gourd and She ran as fast as she could run and Whenever she came to see me she says yank it you’ve got to talk to him I says about what he won’t leave me alone She said, I’m looking for a preacher, and he’s not a preacher.

And so I had Jim come to see me. He said, Jenkins, she won’t stop. She keeps running away. She won’t date me. You get to talk to her. So both of them come to see me and I have to talk. So I got Anne and I told her, I said, what are you looking for now? She said, I want to marry a preacher. I want to be a preacher’s wife. I said, you know you can marry somebody who promises to be a preacher?

and then he not do it. You can even marry a preacher and he can quit. I says, maybe what you’re looking for is just a guy that really knows the Lord, loves the Lord, and loves you and will treat your right. And he’s doing the right thing now. I says, I don’t think you could find a better guy than Jim Bowlin’s your junior. And I hope they make it. I have done weddings and I think, Lord forgive me. And I wonder whether or not will they ever be able to stay together.

And lo and behold, they’ve got two beautiful children now and now one of them’s married and got another kid and they are tremendous individuals. Do you know them? You do. So I’m very slow and careful of trying to put people together. Now, Betty’s done good at this. I mean, she is really good. She’s helped my son find just the perfect wife. I mean, she has really been a jewel. But you have to be very careful because we don’t have to live with them.

I have tried to, years ago, I tried to talk some kids and come into Bible college. And some of them, I am so glad because they really matured and learned and grew. And then I had some of them, I had to kick them out of college. Because they didn’t come because they knew the Lord, Love the Lord, one to learn. They just kept me, well, Yanki wants me to do it. I’ll do it. And I thought, I better stop this.

Because it doesn’t take much to do a lot of damage. And so I’m gonna find out. Let the Lord move upon a person. I try to challenge them and motivate them all I can, but I want them to make the decision. We’re trying to force somebody to do something. I like to present a ministry and opportunities and let people get involved as they want to, without trying to make somebody do something. Now there’s a few times when I have walked up to somebody and I say, you know, I think God wants you in the choir, or play the piano, something I’ve done a little bit of that, you know.

But I didn’t make anybody, I didn’t put a gun at their head, I just threatened their salvation, you know. Not really. Look at the next one, number 16, love is being unwilling to ask another person to be the source of your identity, meaning, and purpose, or inner sense of well-being while refusing to be the source for theirs. In other words, some people need help, but when they need help, we don’t want to give it. We want to be the, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, but love gives.

So if you love, you want to give. The more you love the Lord, then you want to serve. I’ve mentioned this before. I don’t have anybody in the ministry that works for me. I got people in the ministry that work for other people. See Peter works for those people. I work for Peter. I work for him. I work for everybody in this ministry. See, I’m just a servant. I’m not a king. I’m not a dictator. I’m not really a boss.

I’m just the pastor under authority. I’m supposed to serve others. So I try to teach y’all what the word of God says. I try to create an environment where you can feel comfortable in getting involved into a ministry. I serve and I work for you. Isn’t it true that I work for you and you pay me? Well, then that means you must be the boss. I work for you. That’s why you pay me. So anyway, and everybody in place of leadership, whatever we do, we’re working for somebody.

Those people are working in a one or right now, they’re working for those kids. The ranch staff is working for those kids. Sunday’s go teach, they’re working for the kids. Everybody who works in the ministry is working for somebody. So people who don’t understand it, it makes you want to serve. There are some people who always just want to be served. It makes you feel great from some reason. Christ came to minister, not to be ministered unto. We are supposed to minister.

That’s what love is about. And when you don’t understand it, you’ll get it all backwards. And think everybody’s here to please me. Make me happy. Well, what if they don’t make you happy? Now what you’re gonna do? So you come to church, you all see, how can I help people? How can I help? That’s what takes that chip off your shoulders, because you don’t expect something. When you’re serving people, you’re not as easily offended, unless you want them to please you, then you get easily offended when they don’t.

Once you see it, it’s clear. If you don’t, you’ll never get it. Look at the next number 17. Love is the willingness to have less free time, less sleep, and a busier schedule in order to be faithful to what God has called you to be, and to do it as a spouse, a parent, a neighbor, whatever. Love is the willingness to have less free time, less sleep. I was talking to the kids the other day in class. I said, here I am.

I get up and I do my classes five days a week and I don’t have to. Nobody put a gun in my head and say, you have to do this. I said, I do it because I enjoy teaching. I keep thinking that I’m going to teach and train somebody and it could change their life. I’m thinking about I like watching people grow, watching them develop, Because I want God to bless them. But I know God’s blessings upon a person is going to be because, well, they be obedient.

I want to win them to obey God in their life. Whatever God wants them to have. When you see it like that, yeah, that means that you may not get all the sleep you want. I told you the other day, we get up and leave the house when it’s dark, and it’s dark when I get home. I don’t even know what color my house is. I’m just joking a little bit. I mean, but hardly ever see it in the daytime.

All right, look at number 18. Love is a commitment to say no to selfish instincts and to do everything that is within your ability to promote real unity. Functional understanding and active love in your relationship. You’ll teach more people how to love when you love them. when they see how you love them and treat them and this is good for a church, it’s good for a marriage, it’s good for kids, it’s good for everybody. If we took all these things that are mentioned here and placed them into our lives and we did this to demonstrate what love is, is there anything here that would be contrary to what God’s love should be.

Or is this how God wants us to be with one another? Look at the next statement. Number 19, love is stayin’ faithful to your commitment to treat another with appreciation, respect, and grace. Even in moments when the other person doesn’t seem deserving or is unwilling to reciprocate. They may not like it, they won’t return it, and yet you’re nice and they’re not. Not everybody is going to respond the way they should. Some people are going to trample upon your love that are going to rebuke you for whatever you do.

They don’t like it. But remember I’ve said this long time ago, I’ve said it since I’ve been here number time. Serving the Lord means serving the Lord as though you have never been hurt. If you get hurt, then you’ll either get taken care of and confess it to the Lord and forgive and go on, or that hurt will turn to bitterness. That bitterness whereby many are defiled, it becomes a root of bitterness. And many people will be the beneficiaries of your bitterness and it grows and spreads.

Therefore, serve the Lord as though you have never been hurt. Or your hurt will keep you from being the way God wants you to be. Because you see, sometimes you get to where I don’t want to be hurt anymore. In serving the Lord, you are going to be hurt. Mistreated, shamed, despised. And sometimes all you want to do is help people. I’ve had people that I’ve led to Christ stab me in the back, lie about me. I mean, I’ve got friends that I’ve had over the years that have done the same to me, and I think I’ve done nothing to deserve this.

In my mind, absolutely nothing to deserve this, but you have to go through it. But if you’re going to start because somebody doesn’t treat you right, you might not even get started. Understand, if they’ll do this to Christ, what do you expect them to do to us? they treat the master like this and that’s found in the book of Matthew in chapter 10. What do you expect they going to do with us? Those that live godly shall suffer something.

What’s that word? Persecution. You knew it. Look at number 20. Love is the willingness to make regular and costly sacrifices for the sake of a relationship without asking for anything in return or using your sacrifices to place the other person in your debt. Don’t do something that just places people in debt to you. This is how some people buy people because they want them to owe them to being debt to me and to do whatever you want them to do because you’re manipulating them.

Don’t do that. You have standards and principles that you live by and that’s the way it has to be. Look at number 21, love is being unwilling to make any personal decision or choice that would harm a relationship, hurt the other person, or weaken the bond of trust between you.” And then I put this other little statement in here, without approval from God’s Word. There is a time where you may have to hurt somebody you love. You may have to discipline your children and it hurts them, but you do it because you love them and they may not accept it and they can rebel against it.

Sometimes a woman might have to make a decision and the husband and there’s no right way to do it that makes them accept it. Some people believe it or not you cannot help, you cannot please, you cannot satisfy, you cannot win everybody. Some people are bent on destruction and you may not be able to change them. But make sure that you have sought counseling from the Word of God that what you do in contrary to what might appear to them, but you stand on what God’s Word says and believe that God’s way is the best way.

And you may not see it at the time, it doesn’t seem like it works at the time, but give it time. I’ve seen sometimes five and ten years later a stand that I took that I believe was right and some other people didn’t think it was and then they find out it was the right decision. Love teaches you to be patient with people. Number 22, love is refusing to be self-focused or demanding but instead looking for specific ways to serve, support and encourage even when you are busy or tired.

When you’re busy or when you’re tired is sometimes when you’re most vulnerable to quickness and response and bitterness and I know just being sometimes mean and ugly. But we accuse it because well I’m tired and I’m irritable now. So therefore I’m justified in being mean and ugly. Is that true? But people are like this, so aren’t you? People you know. I mean, we’re not like that, but I mean, there’s people you know that aren’t like that. Only at home.

I’ll tell you where’s his wife. Number 23, love is daily admitting to yourself the other person and God that you are unable to be driven by a cruciform love without God’s protection, providing, forgiving, rescuing, delivering grace. Cruciform is a cross. Sometimes we do things only so that people will owe us and do it back to us. Have you ever met people that have a martyr complex? Like they they’re always being crucified and they want you to feel sorry for them?

They have this martyr complex and nobody loves me, nobody cares about me, and always down, always depressed, always discouraged. And the only reason you get like that is because it’s all focused on yourself. Nobody loves me. No, that’s not important. Do you love anybody? So you get it off of themselves, get it back on other people. Why are people so depressed? Because somebody let them down. I don’t have to be depressed if I’m always willing to love and to give.

Depress. That’s the absence of love. No purpose. We’re men. Have we run out of people? There’s nobody who needs loving. Nobody needs to be cared for, to be helped. it all over. I mean everybody’s didn’t got all the love they need. Nobody needs anymore. We’ve run out of prospects, isn’t that a shame? I believe God has enough people to go around. Your world is probably big enough for somebody to use or need you. And you know that in serving the Lord you know that you are going to be used.

I used to say this, you have people in the church and they say Preach it, use me, preach it, use me. Use me any way you want, just use me, just use me. So I use them, and then they say, the preacher just wants to use me. So I don’t matter what you do, you can’t please some people. Now, wouldn’t it be a shame for me to always get my feelings heard because somebody don’t like me. But they don’t like you either.raught.

Now, I got bad news for you. I mean, this is bad news, but you might as well grow up and accept it. Everybody don’t like you. Dan, did you know that? Not everybody loves you. I’m telling you the truth. Not everybody loves you. Not everybody loves you. Peter over here? Not everybody loves Peter. Even Al, take Al back there. Not everybody loves Al. But now, he’s a love of old guy. But not everybody loves you. Randy over there, Randy, not everybody loves you.

I know this is a rule of weighting him because you thought everybody did. Have you ever met people who thought that the world revolves around them. That the sun comes up in the morning just to give that one person sunshine and they are the greatest thing in all the world. Now, you may not hurt for pride, but understanding when it comes to this thing called love, there’s a great responsibility. So the world, God says, they need to know that I love them.

So you and I are going to be different from the world. We’re going to love them with a divine love. A love that comes from God flows through us to other people. Buddy, let me ask you this. Is there enough for us to do? Is there enough to keep us busy? I think so. And if we do that, you’d be surprised how exciting your life can be. How many stories you’ll get to tell because of people’s lives that have been changed because somebody loved them.

We want God to love. He does it through us. Those lost people that Christ died for because He loved them. He told us to go tell them how much He loved them. Well, if we don’t go, they won’t know. That’s why we have to do it. Look up here. This is still the greatest illustration not thinking all the world of explaining the love of God. This hand represents you and me, the wallet represents sin. We all have sin on us.

God loves us. The Bible says He hates our sin, loves us hates sin, loves us hates sin. And for us to pay for sin is eternal separation from God. To go to heaven you have to be perfect. As righteous as God and none of us are perfect, none of us are righteous. So God can’t allow sin into heaven and because we are the sinners, we can’t go. We are in debt. So to express to us how much God loved us, He did something for us.

Since we cannot save ourselves and we had no hope, totally absence of any ability to save ourselves. God sent His Son. And sending Him into the world was a manifestation of God’s love. Jesus Christ Please. He came into the world because he loved us, hates our sin because our sin separates us from God. So Christ took the sin, paid for it on the cross. And remember Jesus said that he did what he did. He says that the world may know that I love the Father.

This is why I do what I do. John chapter 14 verse 31. That the world is the Son of God. that the world may know that I love the Father. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. So the reason he did it, because he wants the world to know that how much he loved the Father. Now, us serving God is so that the world will know how much we love him. So the Bible says Christ took our sin, paid from the cross, came back from the dead.

All we have to do, believe he did it for us. That is accepting the love of God. So when you accept the love of God, then God calls you a beloved, because you allowed God to love you. You did not reject His love. To reject His love is because you rejected Christ. When you accepted Christ, you accepted His love. And you and I now, beloved, now are we the sons of God. Now we’re the sons of God. That’s how we can know we’re going to heaven because Christ paid for our sins.

He loved us that much. Let’s pray, shall we? With every head bound, every act closed, no one looking around. If you’re here tonight or watching by internet, understand salvation is the gift of God. You can’t earn it. You can’t work for it because it’s free. He wants to show you how much He loves you. You don’t deserve it. You’ll never deserve it. That’s why He’s given to you as a gift. He made the payment for your sins. All He wants you to do is to believe that He did it for you.

And He will put that payment He made to your account. You get to go to heaven on what Christ did for you. And if you’ve never done so, would you do it right now? Would you say, yes, I know I’m a sinner and I will trust Christ as my Savior. If you will do so, God will save you. You that are watching by internet, right where you are, right there on the screen. It says, yes, I will trust Christ as my Savior.

If you’ve never done so, I urge you, trust Christ as your Savior. Let us know. We’d appreciate it. Father, we thank you so much for your blessings. Thank you for the opportunity of giving us to come together. Bless each one. We want people to know that we love them. follow we know that you love us. Now we want them to know that we love you. In Christ name, Amen. Are you a new listener to Bibleline? Do you enjoy the teachings of Dr.

Arnold? Well, if you’ve never contacted us before, we want to give you Dr. Arnold’s book, The Gospel Driven Man. Every day we receive many emails from folks who have questions about repentance and salvation, about faith in works, and about how to share the gospel with friends and loved ones. This book, The Gospel Driven Man, covers all those topics, and we want all new listeners of Bibleline to receive a free copy. There’s no obligation, no donation necessary, simply call us at 1-800-576-3771 or write to us and request your free copy of The Gospel Driven Man.

The mailing address is 4811 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. Again, don’t forget to include your mailing address. And God bless you and thank you for listening to Bibleline. Thanks for joining us on Bibleline. If you are in the area, we welcome you to visit us. The address for Calvary Community Church is 4081 George Road, Tampa, Florida, 33634. And now, a closing thought from Pastor Arnold. friend one day it will happen the trumpet will sound and we will be changed caught up to meet the Lord in the air so live today and every day believe in that the Lord is coming soon just keep looking up