Creflo Dollar - Is Your Currency of Love on Empty? - Part 3
I don't know what we were told that church was. I don't know what, you know, who convinced you that, you know, this is a part of your life. You need to be there. But I am telling you right now it's more than gimme, gimme, gimme because you think God's name is Jimmy. It's more than that. It's so much more than that. It's so much more than let me be right with God. Let me do right with God. Maybe he'll help me get my bag. See that goes back to that Mammon spirit. It's so much more than that. When we choose to look past our inner personal challenges and focus on loving one another we show the mark of disciples and we are actually showing the world what God love looks like. They can't see God. They can only see that through us. They can't see it.
Well, let God show you love. They can't see him but they can see you. And what do they see when they see us? Yeah. Taffi and I have a revelation on leaving good tips because they know who we are. What they see? Because they talk about you after you leave. Oh, you know, they do. Don't wait on them, they cheap tippers, they cheap. Every one of you today will have an opportunity to pay on this debt of love. But now you know why. This is what they're going to see, but we still don't get it. We still don't get it. We still trying to turn church into a circus. We still don't get it. We still don't get it. Still trying to go around telling people, "The Lord told me to do this".
You don't know the Lord's voice enough to be talking and telling people what the Lord told you. The Lord told you to be quiet and learn the vocabulary of silence and you still runnin' your mouth. Because we don't get in the Word no more and we don't, you know, Tik Tok has replaced the Bible. How about that? And when social media platforms have more influence on your thinking than the Word, child of God, church, we done missed somethin'. Love results in supernatural miracles. That's what God's trying to show you. Look at 1 Kings 17:8 through 16. That's in the Old Testament. I'm show you an Old Testament example and a New Testament example in the NLT. First Kings 17:8 through 16, I hadn't shared this in a long time. "Then the Lord said to Elijah, 'Go and live in the village of Zarephath, near the city of Sidon. And I have instructed a widow there to feed you.'"
He's trying to get this widow woman out of her trouble by trying to get her to pay a debt of love. "So he went to Zarephath. As he arrived at the gates of the village, he saw a widow gathering sticks, and he asked her, 'Would you please bring me a little water and a cup?'" Trying to get her to pay a debt of love. "As she was going to get it, he called to her, 'Bring me a bite of bread, too.'" Now she about to like getting like who you think? What you think this is? "But she said, 'I swear by the Lord, your God that I don't have a single piece of bread in the house. And I have only a handful of flour left in the jar and a little cooking oil in the bottom of the jug. I was just gathering a few sticks to cook this last meal and then my son and I will die.'"
So she said, I wasn't doing this for you even though what he had, Elijah said what he already told her. Try to get her to show her debt of love and she's still preparing to die because she couldn't see no other way out because they had nothing else in the house to eat. "But Elijah said to her, 'Don't be afraid! Go ahead and do just what you said,'" uh oh, "'but make a little bread for me first.'" Oh, the church would have had a fit if they read that scripture today. Make a little bread for me first. What is he trying to do? Somebody said, what's wrong with this dude? Going to this poor lady's house and she got a son there and that preacher coming in there talking about. Yeah, I know. That's all you got. But make that one for me first. They'd have barbecued him in this day and time. But that's not what he was saying. He was still trying to get her to pay down a debt of love.
We know your situation. We know the circumstance you're facing. Pay down the debt of love. Now, you've heard this more exalted in a man of God. Oh, he's so anointed and he's so powerful. So that's why he's there. And if you, you know, give it to him first, then you know, you have a blessing. And so therefore, I'm like a man of God and then you give to me first. You have a blessing. I don't believe that. I do think there's a blessing that comes to you to do that. I ain't got no problem with that but I think it's deeper than that. It's kind of like Romans 13 was, is more than just getting out of financial debt. It was a debt of love. And I think this situation and every situation that deals with God who is love, there's that love still will release an anointing for things to happen.
So I believe, you know, you can differ with it. I ain't got no problem with that, but I believe that when he said, "Make me a load of bread for me first," he was saying, pay a debt of love. "'Then use what's left to prepare a meal for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says: There will always be flour and olive oil left in your containers until the time when the Lord sends rain and the crops grow again!' So she did as Elijah said". Oh, she payin' her debt of love. "And she and Elijah and her family continued to eat for many, many days". Verse 16, "There was always enough flour and olive oil left in the container just as the Lord had promised through Elijah".
Here's another situation where the debt of love released supernatural power. Believe with all my heart. Look at this, Mark chapter 2 verses 1 through 12. This is interesting. Now this is gonna move us into compassion because compassion is not compassion until it has action. Compassion is love in action. "When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later," we'll read the verse 12, "the news spread quickly that he was back home. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door. While he was preaching God's word to them".
We know what that seem like, don't we Cam, when we had that trailer down in Carrollton and people were packed inside, outside. They wouldn't let us use the pool. So we had to fill our bath tub up and we had to do a double dunk baptism. Slide up, we put you down there, and slide back and stick your knees down there and then you can get on up. But we got her done. Said, "Four men arrived carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head".
That was a debt of love. Who does that? Who does that? They would stop at the crowd and say, well, we tried but we couldn't get you in. But love moved them. We're fittin' going to climb on the roof and we're gonna tear the shingles out of the roof and we're going to put, we're gonna put a hole. Remember they said Jesus was home and they found out he was home. I mean, because I'm thinking whose house was that they just tore up? All right now, this is gonna shock you. It was Jesus's house. No, no, no. The Bible says foxes have holes and the birds of the air have a nest, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
And so, for the rest of your Christian life, you thought Jesus was homeless. They said that about Jesus when he was traveling and he was going through this village and he said, "We're gonna camp here". And Jesus said, "No, we can't stay here. We got some problems here". He said, "Foxes have holes in this village. Birds of the air have a nest in this village, but we don't have nowhere to lay our head in this village". And if you read on, he says, "That's why we're going to the next village".
How long have you thought that Jesus was homeless? And so you go... see if Jesus was homeless then all of us need to sell our house and we need to go be homeless because we're gonna try to be like Jesus. But you cannot deny the debt of love that's being paid right here. That we're not gonna stop at the crowd on the outside, nor the crowd on the inside. We got to get you in front of Jesus. So we gonna tear his roof off, tear the roof off the... Come out, come out, come out, come out. Being transformed in the... "We want the..." Just being transformed. "Going to turn... Ow wee hay".
So you gotta go be transformed, see. You don't get to amazing grace all of a sudden. You got to go through parliament and then end up at the meetings right here. See, see. Okay, some of the young people like where did that come from? You're trying to figure out what I'm saying, right? I'll explain to you later. They couldn't bring him, "They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above his head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, 'My child, your sins are forgiven.' But some of the teachers of the religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, 'What is He saying? This is blasphemy!'"
You know, just like when I taught on tithing. They say this is blasphemy. No, it was Mammon. "'Only God can forgive sins!' Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking. So he asked them, 'Why do you question this in your heart? Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man, "Your sins are forgiven" or "Stand up, pick up your mat and walk".'" Because we know that most people are hindered in the supernatural because of their sin consciousness. "'So I'll prove to you that the Son of Man has authority on the earth to forgive sins.' Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, 'Stand up, pick up your mat, go home!'" Watch this. "And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God exclaiming, 'We've never seen anything like this before!'"
Hold on, everybody, this upcoming year the things that God is getting ready to do in your life, you're going to be amazed while you're praising God. And you're gonna say we ain't never seen nothing like this before. You think you have seen it all but you are going to declare over and over, I ain't never seen nothing like this before. I know we had a bill. I ain't never seen nothing like this before. I called tp pay it but they say they don't have no record of it. We have never seen nothing like this before.
Let's define what happened here. What happened when somebody's love moved them to a rooftop. Their love moved them. This is called compassion. When your love moves you. Love in action. Compassion is a deep sympathy or pity that moves one to action. It comes from the heart, not the head. Compassion comes from the heart, not the head. It's a component of love. It's not a component of intelligence is not compassion until it moves us to action. Compassion is the force behind paying the debt of love. Compassion is love in action. We've got to be able to start seeing people in their need and let compassion move you.
And over and over again, Jesus was moved with compassion. The world hadn't seen that yet. Not like, not like what they're getting ready to see. Because when you put all your focus on your political platform and you put all your focus on the money and you put all your focus on what somebody said and put all your focus on self, it's hard to see others in their need. Because you can't see past you. This stuff is about to come to an end. And what do you wanna take with you when you stand before the Lord? How do you want to stand before the Lord? You want to stand before the Lord talking about all of your works that were born not out of love but out of something else.
Do you wanna stand before the Lord as someone who was not dependent upon him at all? Do you wanna stand before the Lord as someone who did things but it never came out of your heart? Or do you want to stand before the Lord and declare that I spent my life paying the debt of love. Your redemption is drawing closer and closer every day and the proof of it will be shown every day. It will be proved in the weather. It'll be proved in nature. It will be proved when volcanoes that have been silent for 800 years. It'll be proven in the attitudes of people. Proof all around.
So it's not gonna be, God, I didn't know you was coming. He told you a long time ago here are the signs. But didn't nobody tell me it was gonna be today. He didn't tell nobody what day it was. It's time to get ready, man. It's time to detach yourself away from what controls you and give your heart over to God and let him lead you to the path that he's called you to walk down. Every one of you who are here today, there is a path for your life, a purpose for how you're wired, a debt of love that we all will pay. And we will never be able to say I'm finished paying that debt of love. It's not meant to be paid off. It's meant to be continued because with that is the promise of the supernatural to cause you to walk in such an amazement that people will look at you and say, I have never seen that before. Bow your heads:
Father, we thank you for today. We thank you that our ears are anointed to hear. Our hearts anointed to receive. We are committed to paying this debt of love, but we can't do it without your grace. There's no way in ourselves that we can pay this debt or continue to pay it. You will enable us to pay off every man. You will enable us to fulfill all of our obligations of whatever contractual agreement we made. We know you can do that but Lord help us to pay this debt of love. And to commit ourselves to do so. And to rid ourselves of the fantasies that come with false religion. Help us, God. Move in our heart a place that only you can move in. Move in our hearts and make the difference in our lives and cause us to think different and to understand differently. Oh my God, help us. Oh wow. You are so good and we dare not rise up any day thinking that we can live any day without you. You are our source. And like the disciples, there's no thing on this earth that's more important that we won't choose to follow you. You are our source. Prepare us for what is to come. Prepare us for what is to come. Prepare us for what is to come. And may we praise you every day with no fear. We are equipped and ready and we give you praise for it now. In Jesus's mighty name, we pray, amen.