Joseph Prince - Are You Receiving the Lord's Love?
This is an excerpt from: Unveiling Jesus' Heart To Serve You
Are you troubled about many things? We say that it is our right to be troubled about many things. But Jesus says, "Martha, Martha, you are careful and troubled about many things, but one thing is needful, and Mary has chosen the good part which shall not be taken away from her". I love it. It's like Jesus says, "She chose that good part, I love it, and no one is gonna take it from her". Not Satan, not the sister. Even older in ranks, too bad. She has chosen the good part. You see, it's gotta be chosen. God won't force it on you. Every day, you've got a chance to sit down and receive His ministry. Actually, when I was growing up in the Christian world, they would teach us, right, do your quiet time.
All right, so I do my quiet time. They ask me later on, "How was your quiet time"? right? I'd say, "It was very quiet". I don't know what to say to God, you know, I was born again as a teenager, and in my teenage years and all that, I can talk, in class, I stammer, but I can talk to my friends and all that. During quiet time, I just say it's too quiet. I don't talk to God. I don't know what to say to God. And they'd tell me, "It's for God to talk to you". But He doesn't talk to me. It's very quiet. But I don't have the keys yet. I was doing quiet time, I wasn't receiving. I wasn't going there to receive from the Lord. I wasn't coming before the Lord to receive His love, amen. Actually, the Lord wants to love you.
You know, I've said before and time and time again, because like I said, I have an older daughter and she was born exactly during the time of the former rain in Israel, November. And I have a second son, all right? My daughter was born in the former rain, literally November, and my son was born in March, the time of the latter rain, literally the month of the latter rain. The two main rains in Israel. And I always tell them, "Former rain, early rain". Sorry, "Early rain, former rain, latter rain, latter rain," amen?
So they both symbolize something, but I also believe that my life is because of you all. When I'm supposed to have a child, it's because of you all, all right? It's not based on my efforts, amen? It's really based on you all. I have an older one so that you all who have older kids, "You all don't know, lah". You know, during the time of teenage and all, I have, "Pastor Prince, you only have a young boy. You do not know what it's like to have a teenager, to have a young adult working, and the responsibility they are supposed to show their parents, and I'm going through this and all that". I know, amen? All the way through University, yes, I know. I know. I know what works and what doesn't, amen.
But some people say, "Well, Pastor Prince, you forgot already, lah. Now Jessica is, you know, in her 20s and all that, you forget what it's like to have a young kid and all that kind", I know. So I believe even my life is because of you all. Uh-huh. So if you all bring even more young parents who just got married, maybe Wendy will have a baby now, amen? Yeah, and that's in the Bible, by the way. The minister's life is not a life for himself. The minister's life is God does it in a way as a testimony for the rest as well as also for the blessing of the rest.
See, we are here to be used. We are here, that's what the word "minister" means. Jesus Himself came down and said this, "I came not to be ministered unto but to minister," amen? So we minister to our children, we minister to our wives primarily with words because we can do a lot of things for them. I know we can also do a lot of things, like sacrifices and all that. It's in deeds, okay? But one of the main ways love is shown, right, is actually words. Your children need your words.
So we learned just now that one of the best things we can do is that we have this propensity knowing that we are, we tend to complain. We tend to... and by the way, why Martha was careful, and anxious, and troubled about many things, many things, about many things? Because she didn't do the one thing. She didn't sit at Jesus' feet and she wasn't occupied with Him, amen. She wasn't, like, saying, "I'm here to receive Your love," or you know, "I look forward for my quiet time with the Lord, amen, because that's when I receive His love. I can't wait to spend time".
Sometimes I'm with people, right, honestly, it's not that I don't appreciate the people I have. I love them, but I feel like I wanna go away and spend time with the Lord tonight. There are moments I feel that way. I just, because I know that there I receive unconditional love. From my friends, I love them but I can always say that they love me conditionally, unconditionally, or not, amen? You all love me because I preach to you all. It's conditional, conditional. If I don't preach, you all don't love me. "No, Pastor, some of us will still love you," amen? May your tribe increase, hallelujah. All those in the first row, take note. Okay, so, the best thing, because observing this tendency in you, all right, your new man is quick to spot something beautiful.
I shared this before, but for the benefit of those who never heard it, this is not from the Bible. It's actually from a writing that goes all the way back. It's what you called apocryphal teachings, writings about Jesus, because John himself said that Jesus did many things, many things; that if everything that Jesus did was written down, all the miracles that He did was written down, I suppose that even the books in all the world could not contain what He did. Wow, you talk about the outer meaning, the inner meaning of the deeds. One deed itself takes how many books already, amen? And the books are still being written from His three-and-a-half years of ministry, right? So what is written is for our benefit.
So anyway, this teaching, and it bears witness with my spirit. It talks about a crowd gathering and people are saying all kinds of things, terrible things about what they were looking at. They were all looking down, and all kinds of horrible things. And some people were holding their nose, you know, and they were, like, in apprehension of what they are looking at, you know, with such a horror look on their face. And slowly, the crowd saw someone behind and realized it was Jesus, and they start clearing.
They made a way, all right? They made a way and then they looked at Him. There was silence. And Jesus came and looked into the pit where they were all looking at and there was a dead dog. It was terrible. The dog was violently mangled dead and flies were all around. And there were people spitting on the dog. There were some, when they saw Jesus, they all kept quiet and they looked at Him to see what they will say. And Jesus looked down and then He says, "Pearls", you know pearls? "Pearls were never whiter than those teeth".
So when the dog was there, the dog's teeth were exposed, and He said that the pearls were never whiter than those teeth. He found something good to say. I bear witness with this as a story that is worthy of my Lord, amen. So we have this tendency, right, whereas heaven's tendency is to look for the good. You see, the whole reason that Jesus came and died for us on the cross for our sins, all right, so that sin is no more the subject between you and God. It's a closed issue. So when God deals with you, He wants you to know He's not looking at you with all your faults. Whenever you come already, you know, you say, "Oh no, just now I quarreled with my wife, oh no. I come to God now because I'm desperate for His favor. My boss just called me and told me that the deadline had been brought forward. I need His favor. I need His wisdom. I need His help. Oh man, but I shouldn't have quarreled with my wife now".
So what are you obsessed with? Not with His love. You're not occupied with His goodness. You're not occupied with what Jesus did at the cross, with what Pastor Lawrence shared just now during Communion. Every week, he tells us Jesus was wounded for our transgressions, amen. He was bruised for our iniquities. Every Sunday, right, he tells us, "By His stripes we are healed," amen, yet we keep on forgetting that. You know why? You think about it, when Jesus in the upper room, He said, "God is glorified in Him and I in God". You know when Jesus said that? Right when Judas, He gave the sop, the bread, He dip it and He gave it to Judas. That's the greatest act of love.
In Jewish tradition, when you dip your morsel of food into the tray and you give it to your... whoever you give it to, that's the one that you love the most. That's the one that you are actually honoring the most. Not honoring, but loving the most, okay? You cannot be honoring the deed of Judas. Judas was in the process of betraying Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. It's all been prophesied in the Bible, even the betrayal, even the 30 pieces of silver, right? So Jesus gave it to him and Jesus told him, "Whatever you do, do quickly". And the Bible says he went out from the upper room, and it's so telling. It tells us, "And it was night". It was night, so spiritually speaking it was night for Judas. He stepped into darkness, right?
And Jesus knew where he was going, but the apostles all did not. The disciples did not. The disciples thought, the Bible says, because Judas was a treasurer, therefore he took the money. And when Jesus said, "Do what you need to do, do quickly," such cool, Jesus is so cool, isn't it? He's telling him, "You're gonna betray me, do it fast," amen. He knew.