There are grave responsibilities that go along with love—both in human love and in God’s love. There are so many broken homes today because people will not live up to or fulfill their responsibilities in love, and there is so much spiritual dryness in many people’s lives because they will not accept the responsibilities that go along with the love of God.

A life that amounts to anything on Earth is one that is built on and surrounded by love. There has never been a good life that did not have love; and the more love you have, the more of the life of God you will have. God’s life and happiness flow to you through His love just as human blessings flow through human love. The greatest blessings come through the love of God; and when you put God’s love and human love together, you will have abundant life.

Before we go any further, you must believe that a person can be perfect in love just as the Bible says: Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Matthew 5:48). God means exactly what He says, so you can be perfect in His love. How?—But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected (I John 2:5). If we keep God’s Word, then His love will be perfected in us.

Where Is Love?

When you accept a person’s love, you have certain obligations to that person. When you accept a person’s love in marriage and your spouse gives you his or her whole life, you become responsible for your mate; and you have obligations to that person that you must meet. People used to believe that, but many no longer do; and you can see all of the destruction and chaos it has caused in families. Homes are not what they used to be, and the divorce rate is much higher than it ever has been before.

Today, people are without real love; and instead of marrying, they just shack up with one person after another. People who degrade themselves don’t have respect for each other. Two people who sleep together without being married have no respect for one another because there is nothing about the devil and his works to respect. His works bring no respect at all on Earth.

The spirit of our society today is to do whatever you want to do; but it is the spirit of the Antichrist, and it is destroying people. The world is becoming like it was in the days of Noah and in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the Lord can’t stand the stench much longer. The only thing that is holding back judgment now is the love of God’s people. God has found the faithful few—those who are ready to leave here, those who are consecrated and dedicated—and the Rapture is about to take place. Destruction is about to fall; but with the love of God, we keep pulling down His grace, and it is overflowing to those around us.

You have many responsibilities when you accept God’s love, and Jesus told us of one of the most important ones: And he [Jesus] said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). What a responsibility! When you come to God, you come into His family; and as a member of that family, you are responsible to take the Gospel to the whole world. Jesus didn’t say that we should just hold on to the Gospel, treasure it, take it to bed with us and never let it get away. No, He told us to go and tell it. When you give to this Jesus world outreach, you are telling it because you are sending me to tell it throughout the world; and that is the same as if you were doing it. You are helping to make up the voice that will sound out for God in all nations in this final hour.

Many people do not believe in going to the mission fields; and they tell me, “The United States needs you; you don’t need to go to other nations.” That is not what Jesus said. People who say those things are not feeling their obligations and their responsibilities toward God, and they are not using His love.

We are responsible to make sure that the people in other nations hear the truth. Some will ask me, “What will happen to those who have never heard the Gospel? Will they die and go to hell?” According to the Bible, they will; and that is why we have to reach them. The Bible says that God is calling men everywhere to repentance, so we cannot decide that the Lord will overlook them because that is not so. There was a time when God winked at ignorance but not anymore. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30).

God Gave His Heart and All of His Love

When Jesus was born, He was the love gift from Heaven for us. When Jesus died, it took all of God’s heart to make a Calvary for mankind; and it was the only time God ever gave all of His heart for the human race. He did not need to give all of His heart when He made the first man and woman; but when man entered his sinful state of being undone, possessed and taken over by the spirit of Lucifer, it took God’s whole heart of love to deliver him.

When you take someone’s whole heart into your hands and so much of his or her love that the person has no more love left, you have grave responsibilities to that person. We have to wake up in this final hour and know our responsibilities in love. We are responsible for so much that the burden of those things should wake us up at all hours and cause us to pray, fast and shed many tears because of the responsibilities of God’s love.

God’s love brings with it mountains of responsibilities; but His love is so great that it can fill all the oceans and cover the whole Earth, and there will still be plenty left over. God’s love is so great that it will last for all time and eternity. It is your lifeline; and without it, you would have no life. God’s love means that you will live forever and that you will have happiness, joy and peace like God Himself. You will have a body that will never suffer pain, eyes that will never dim and ears that will hear like God Himself; and yet you think that you are not responsible to God.

In this life, you will take on the responsibility to sign away so much of your life to buy just one home, yet the Lord is building you a heavenly mansion that on Earth might cost trillions of dollars. How much responsibility do you feel to a God of love like that? If somebody on Earth was to build you a mansion worth millions of dollars, would you not feel like you owed that person love and respect as long as he lived? If he asked you to do something, would you not feel obligated to do it and to do it with great love? The Lord has given us everything. Paul said, Ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power (Colossians 2:10). When something is complete, there is nothing to be added; and through God’s love, we are complete in Him.

God Must Be First

Do you know what you are responsible for, and how much do you feel those responsibilities? You may look at others and think that they should do certain things for God, but what about you? What if I was to send word to my congregation one weekend and say that I felt too bad to attend the services? The people would say, “He is obligated to be here; he has responsibilities! Look at the people who have traveled for miles to receive. The sick are expecting him to pray for them, and he is responsible to do that.” We have to fulfill our responsibilities.

If you had the right kind of home as a child, you had responsibilities. In a home that has a lot of love, there is a lot required; and my home was like that. We had family prayer—a time when we would put down our books and stop whatever we were doing so we could enjoy the blessings of God. We were not all living for the Lord like Mama and Daddy were, but we had responsibilities to God. We needed His help, and Mama would pray over us so we would have His help; and I always made good grades in school. Mama said that if we went to church, God would bless us more; and my parents always kept their responsibilities to God.

Parents, you have responsibilities in this final hour to your children, to your home and most of all to God; and when you meet your responsibilities to God, your home will be taken care of. You will be a good husband, a good wife or a good child; and you will get along with people.

If your mate does not meet his or her responsibilities, then it makes things very hard; but you have to serve God anyway. You have to go to church even if your companion doesn’t want to, and you have to keep your responsibilities to the Lord. You cannot always do what you want to do with family members who will not go God’s way. Some people feel that if they stay home with their companion, it will bring him or her to the Lord; but you will never win someone by compromising. You will only win people by being responsible to God. When you keep your responsibilities to Him, He will take care of His responsibilities toward you and move for you in a greater way.

Recognize Your Responsibilities

When the Early Church disciples were completely taken over by the love of God, they recognized their responsibilities to Him; but before the Crucifixion, the Resurrection and having the Upper Room experience, they failed. You have to recognize your responsibilities in life or you will fail; and if you do not recognize your responsibilities to God, you will fail Him in the Kingdom, and you cannot afford to be a failure in this last hour.

After going to the Upper Room, the Early Church took on all of its responsibilities and separated completely from the world. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you (II Corinthians 6:17). You are responsible to separate, too. Jesus came to Earth and brought the love of God; and then He prayed, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world (John 17:15,16). If you walk with God, it is His responsibility to preserve you and to keep you; and the devil cannot take you over. But when you fail in your responsibilities to God, it weakens you; and the devil can get in.

In the beginning, Adam and Eve were responsible to God; and they were responsible to each other. God had put them together, but Eve did not fulfill her responsibilities. Instead, she went to the tree of forbidden fruit; and today, there are a lot of people camping out around that same tree in the form of the works of the flesh. They may say they are not going to partake of that tree and that they are just going to look, but Eve thought she was just going to look, too. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat (Genesis 3:6).

Turn the Devil Off

You can’t sit around and look at the devil’s works on television or anywhere else; and in this last hour, there is plenty of temptation. You can turn on your TV and see people without any clothes on because the devil has taken over people’s minds. They think it is a great thing to show their naked bodies, but it is terrible. Are you going to be thrilled to watch that kind of thing? Are you going to be a part of it? Your responsibility is to turn it off.

When you hear people on TV who are blaspheming the Lord’s name, your responsibility is to turn that program off. I don’t want to hear people curse God or blaspheme my Lord let alone invite them into my home. When you turn on the wrong programs, you are saying, “Come right on in and talk however you want to. Go ahead and say four-letter words; it doesn’t make any difference to me.” Do you think the Lord is going to stay with you if you let the devil come into your home? You may think nobody is looking; but if you are a child of God, Jesus is supposed to live at your house all the time, and you have responsibilities to Him. He said if you would open the door, He would come in and live with you. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me (Revelation 3:20).

When you let Him in, you know that He is pure, clean and holy; and you know He will not endorse any of the seventeen works of the flesh. The Lord said it is our responsibility to stay away from those works. He said if you indulged in just one of them, you would have no part in His Kingdom. Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21).

If you want to know what sin is, it is all spelled out for you in those verses. If you want to know whether or not you are a true child of God, the Lord gave you the scales to weigh yourself on in those verses of scripture. If you don’t measure up to them, there is something wrong. You have the frown of God, and you are not a part of His Kingdom. Then you wonder why you are so weak and cannot overcome the devil. You must dine with the Lord to be an overcomer. He came and was more than a conqueror, and He offers Himself entirely to you.

Keep the Faith

The Early Church reached out for all of Jesus, and they carried Him to the world. The name “Jesus” was paramount to them—they talked about it, sang about it, cried about it and dropped it into every ear they possibly could. They went to prison for it and died for it because no person or thing could take them away from their responsibilities to God. They even felt the responsibility to die for Him just as Paul did. He told Timothy, For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing (II Timothy 4:6-8). Paul felt so content about his situation that you would have thought he was going to Heaven alive, but he was going by the way of Nero’s chop block.

Paul had kept the faith, and that is the secret; but you cannot keep God’s faith without His love. Love is a must. Love is to the spiritual being as water is to the physical person—you can’t live without it. You cannot live for God without His love, and Paul was totally possessed with God’s love.

When you are really in love with someone, you will not try to doublecross or put something over on that person. Instead, you will want to please that person, and even the little things count. Just one smile can mean so much from a person you love; but somebody else could laugh all day, and it wouldn’t affect you.

You may think you don’t need love, but you do. There is no life without love, and our greatest responsibility when we become God’s children is to serve that love. Why do you think God gave us so much of it? You can talk about Heaven and anything else in the Bible; but if you don’t serve divine love, you will not be a real soul winner. You have to love people to be a real Jesus soul winner, and that is how the Bride is going to sweep so many of them into the Kingdom in this her last and final hour.

Take God’s Way

Simon Peter didn’t always feel his responsibilities like he should have even though the Lord had used him to help bring about great miracles. Peter was the one who had pulled a fish out of the sea with money in its mouth. Jesus had told him, Go thou to the sea, and cast an hook, and take up the fish that first cometh up; and when thou hast opened his mouth, thou shalt find a piece of money: that take, and give unto them for me and thee (Matthew 17:27).

Jesus had been very good to Simon Peter. He had depended on him and trusted him; but then Simon didn’t accept his responsibilities, and he wanted to do things his way. He thought he was being responsible for Jesus when he cut off a man’s ear. Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear…Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it (John 18:10,11)?

Some people think they are taking care of their responsibilities when they are not acting right at all. I have heard people say, “I told that person just what he needed to hear!” Watch out! If the Lord had wanted to tell people just any old thing, He could have shouted it down from Heaven; and Jesus would not have had to come. It was not somebody telling me off that lifted me out of sin; it was love that lifted me. Jesus told me what I needed to hear when He told me that He loved me and wanted me and that He would forgive me. But Jesus also rebuked me because I had always had plenty of love, so He could not reach me through love.

After Jesus was crucified, He loved Simon Peter into serving Him. When Simon saw the crucified Savior and the atonement, he accepted them. When he saw the One who had conquered death, hell and the grave, he no longer thought his responsibilities seemed hard; and he was ready to take care of them. You have to be willing to take care of your responsibilities.

If you always grumble about your responsibilities in your home, you are not happy. When a man always complains about how hard he has to work to support his family and the wife grumbles about cleaning the house, neither one of them is happy or in love. It takes love to wash the same old clothes, clean the same house and scrub the same dishes over and over; and it is the same way in the work of God.

Fall in Love with Jesus

Paul learned to be so content that he said, For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need (Philippians 4:11,12). Paul was content when it rained, when it snowed or when the sun was shining. He was content in prison or out of prison, when people were beating him or when they were listening to him preach. Paul learned to accept anything because he had fallen in love with Jesus, and he wanted to do His will. Paul did not fail in his responsibilities.

I decided that if God could change Paul, He could change and use any of us. Old Saul was so wicked that God even changed his name to Paul after He had made a new man out of him…and then Paul received the gifts of God. God used Paul to bring me to where I am today because when I got saved, the divine gifts of God and the fruits of the Spirit seemed beyond me. The Lord’s gifts were on such a high shelf that I didn’t think I could ever get to one of those gifts; but through much prayer, fasting and living in the Word, God uses His gifts in my life.

As a child of God, you are responsible for so much; so you have to live mighty close to Him. God has given you His whole heart, and you hold it in your hands; so be careful with it. It would be a fearful hour if we didn’t have so much of His love.

Be a Holy Ghost Witness

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8). What a responsibility! Jesus was saying, “I will give you my power; and when you receive it, what great love you will have! The Holy Ghost, the third person in the trinity of the Godhead, will come and live on the inside of you; but then you will have more responsibilities than you have ever had before.”

Behold, I [Jesus] send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49). There are great responsibilities that go along with receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost, responsibilities far beyond what anybody has ever thought. When the disciples received the Holy Ghost, they took the revelation of Jesus Christ through the Holy Ghost, and they went forth to do all that the Lord had called them to do and to be His witnesses. They paid a great price, but they felt a grave responsibility to God.

You have to be careful with your life, Child. You have to be a daily witness for the Lord, and you can only be that witness through His love working in perfection in your life. Some people are just “tongue witnesses”—the only time they witness for God is when they are talking, but they don’t live for Him. People can throw that kind of witness aside, but a witness that is projected through the life of a true child of God is different. That kind of life has the real love of God, real holy living and the Jesus touch; and there is nothing like that touch anywhere in the world. When Jesus touched sinful people, He transformed them. When He touched the blind and the crippled, they received sight and were made to walk. Just one touch of His divine love was all it took; and a touch of God’s love today is all you need to get rid of any disease, affliction or deformity…but you have to come into the realization that His touch is all you need.

Only Believe

Your responsibility to God is to believe Him. Jesus said, Only believe (Mark 5:36). Why will you doubt Him when He has treated you with such great love and respect? He has given you great promises and has never broken one of them. When you doubt God, you are failing Him.

When the Early Church believed the Lord in perfection, He worked in perfection. The nine gifts of the Spirit worked in wonderful perfection, and the nine fruits of the Spirit were evident in every life. When they touched people, it was just like the Man of Galilee touching them. Jesus in His bodily form was gone, but the Holy Spirit was still serving Him to the people.

This world needs Jesus, and all people must have Jesus if they are to be the people God ordained for them to be. Therefore, it is our responsibility to serve Jesus to people wherever we go and to be kind.

The love of Jesus is not unkind, and you will find it described in I Corinthians 13—what it is, what it will do and what it will not do. God told us that His love would hold us up as long as we would accept holiness and righteousness and have a pure heart, and He promised us that the pure in heart would see God one day. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God (Matthew 5:8). Since Eden, God has hidden Himself from the eyes of human beings, but the pure in heart are promised that they will see Him.

You Must Serve

You may think you cannot do anything great for the Lord; but He said if you would just serve a cup of cold water in His name, you would be blessed because you would be doing service for Him. For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward (Mark 9:41). In Bible days, serving a cup of cold water took great effort because people did not have running water or refrigerators in that day. If you had enough love that you were willing to run fast enough and far enough, you could serve someone a cup of cold water by dipping it from the well or spring and running with it to the person before it got hot. Everything God asks you to do requires some effort.

When Jesus was here, He had something to serve; and He showed you how to serve it. He never asked people to serve Him without being ready to serve them. He said to the woman at the well, Give me to drink (John 4:7). When Jesus first began talking to the woman, she didn’t understand what He was talking about; so she asked, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans (John 4:9). Then Jesus answered, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life (John 4:13,14).

The woman thought Jesus did not know her; but He did, and He said, Go, call thy husband, and come hither. The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband: For thou hast had five husbands; and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband: in that saidst thou truly (John 4:16-18). That answer was like an earthquake to her, and it tore her to pieces; but the Lord put her right back together again.

Then the woman had a new responsibility—to run into the city and carry the message of the Gospel. The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ? Then they went out of the city, and came unto him (John 4:28-30). She was a woman of the gutter who had been living in sin until Jesus suddenly cleaned her up and transformed her into a preacher. And many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him [Jesus] for the saying of the woman, which testified, He told me all that ever I did (John 4:39).

Some of those people knew that woman; and because she was so lit up, they accepted Jesus at once while others ran out to see Him for themselves. Many people had no doubt seen that woman drunk and knew she had been unhappy; so when she ran to them like she did, they knew she had to have found living water. They decided, “The man she found has to be the Christ; nobody but Christ could have changed her like that.”

Anything for Jesus

We miss it when we won’t do the little things for the Lord and are always looking for something big to do. I am forever offering the people in my congregation something to do for God, but some only want to do what they want to do. When I got saved, I was willing to do anything for Jesus. If there was something that no one else wanted to do, I would do it because I had told the Lord I would do anything.

When the people in my church were going to jack up the building to dig underneath and build Sunday school rooms, I was ready to help dig. That old, red clay in North Carolina was hard; but we were shoveling, digging and hauling. Sure, I was dirty and red, but I was happy. Then I was able to enjoy the new Sunday school rooms and even teach in one of them.

Have you ever taught a bunch of little boys? Some of you can’t handle even one little boy, but I had a bunch of them; and we had a great time. I taught them the way of salvation, and I didn’t have any trouble with them talking or misbehaving because I kept something going on all the time. I’m an emotional person, and I can move quickly from one thing to another; and the boys would just sit there watching and wondering what I was going to do next.

Do Unto Others

You will find some strong scriptures in Matthew’s Gospel, and you must weigh yourself with these verses. Jesus was talking to the disciples saying, For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee (Matthew 25:35-39)? The disciples stood there dumbfounded saying, “Lord, you were never sick, and you were never in prison.” And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me (Matthew 25:40).

When we are helping others, clothing the naked or feeding the hungry, Jesus said it is the same as feeding and clothing Him. You serve Jesus by serving people. The Lord doesn’t need you to bring Him something; He needs you to serve that something to others. When you give an offering, the Lord doesn’t need your dollars; He needs what will be served with those dollars. The serving is what counts. When you are giving, you are serving; and it is the same as if you are ministering to the Lord. If you visit a person who is sick and shut in, that is the same as if you had knocked on the Master’s door and said, “Jesus, I have come to help you.” Most of us would walk down the street with the best bowl of soup and crackers we could find if we knew Jesus lived down there and that He needed our help because we really love Him, and that is what the Jesus love will do.

In this age, people have become so busy and caught up in the world that they don’t use Jesus’ love as much as they should; and they don’t use human love very much anymore either. People used to have love for their neighbors, and they would look out for and help one another. If someone’s barn burned down, the farmers would get together and rebuild it because there was a lot more love and respect for humanity than there is now; but that doesn’t happen very often anymore.

You Are Not Your Own

You must learn what your responsibilities are to God and use His love to take care of them, but you will never really accept what they are until you receive God’s love. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). God loved the world so much that He gave Jesus to you, and now it is your responsibility to give back; but what are you going to give? He asked first of all for you to give yourself to Him; but He said, “I am going to let you have free choice, and you can choose whether or not you want to give yourself to me.”

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s (I Corinthians 6:19,20). You have been bought with the blood of Jesus because you could not be redeemed with silver and gold. You are not your own if you have given yourself to God, so why should you act like you are? When you recognize the purchase price, you have nothing less to give but all of you daily.

When you stood on the auction block, you heard God’s bid and the devil’s bid. The devil bid, “Eat, drink and be merry today because tomorrow you may die; so live it up.” Jesus said, “I bid eternal life, and I bid abundant life in this present world. I bid that I will go with you all the way and that you will have all of me.” Thank God, you decided that the devil’s bid was not what you wanted.

It is time to praise God and honor the Lord for His wonderful plan of salvation! If we will obey the Lord, live in His will, do what He tells us to do, take our responsibilities to heart and take care of them, we won’t have anything to fear or worry about. We will have all of Heaven backing us up.

Be a Light for God

The following scriptures about responsibility from the Sermon on the Mount are powerful. Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour [the salt will not accept its responsibilities], wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men (Matthew 5:13). Many foods are no good without salt; and without the Lord in our lives, we are no good either. We must have Him. He flavors our lives and makes them so wonderful just as a little bit of salt does to food.

If you are a real child of God, you are good for all things God wants of you; and you accept and take care of your responsibilities, whether they include teaching Sunday school, mowing the lawn, sweeping the floor, visiting the sick or bringing people to church. We all can find something to do, and then we must do it with all of our heart.

Ye are the light of the world (Matthew 5:14). What a grave responsibility it is that the Lord would make you the light of the world! If you buy a light bulb that doesn’t work, you take it back because it is no good. Well, think about how the Lord feels when you are to be the light of the world, and you won’t even light up. You may grumble and complain, but you won’t light up. If you would stop all of that, you would light up for the Lord; but you have to be pure and clean to be the light of God. Then He will shine His light through you to others.

God doesn’t just shine a light down from Heaven; He uses people and shines His light through them. One day, there will no longer be enough people to keep the light of God here on Earth; and it will be over. When the Bride is taken out, there will be very little light left; the world will be in almost total darkness.

You Must Live Holy

You must realize how valuable and essential you are to God’s work because God has based His work on and planned it around man. In the beginning, God made the Garden for man and not for Himself because He already had many beautiful gardens in Heaven. Then He gave His man responsibilities. And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (Genesis 2:15-17). But Adam and Eve chose not to fulfill their responsibilities.

No matter what people say, your responsibility is to live holy and certainly not to deny that it can be done. The Christian world today says we cannot live free from sin, but God said our responsibility is to be ye holy; for I am holy (I Peter 1:16). For sin shall not have dominion over you (Romans 6:14). When sin has no power over you, you are free. If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed (John 8:36). This means you are absolutely free!

Sin is bondage or the Lord never would have delivered us from it. In this final hour, it will be those who are without sin who will carry the Gospel to the world and do the work of the Lord. Others will try to do it, and they have tried in the past; but it has not worked.

When the Early Church was delivered, they were righteous and holy and stood in one mind and one accord in the mind of the Son of God. They accepted all He taught and believed, and they lived it. They did not go by their own theories or have one person saying, “I don’t believe this,” and another saying, “I don’t believe that.” When all of that came along, it destroyed the power and the love of God in the body of Christ; and it is time for the love of Jesus to be returned to us.

Divine love destroys gossip, ill feelings, malice and everything that is unlike God. It destroys the works of the flesh in people’s lives and draws them into His greatness. When you find Calvary, you find the place of love where you are redeemed and cleansed, the only place where all of your sins can be washed away and you can be made a new creation in Christ Jesus. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (II Corinthians 5:17).

As a new creature, you go forth in newness of life as a new creation of the perfect love and the perfect faith of God. Your inabilities pass away because His abilities become a part of your life. They become your strength, your hope, your help, your faith and your deliverance.

Use the Love of Jesus

Jesus said, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth (Matthew 28:18). Jesus came and showed us that He had all power and authority; and with all love, He gave them to us. Then He told us, These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover (Mark 16:17,18). Jesus also said, Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you (Luke 10:19).

You can only use the name of Jesus with all the love of God, the same love that God had when He gave us His Son; and human love cannot use that kind of power. That was the reason Jesus said, This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting (Matthew 17:21).

Self has to be cast down before you can rise up in the greatness of the Lord and take on the mind of Jesus. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:5). When you have that mind, you will think like Jesus, believe like Jesus, pray like Jesus, walk like Jesus and live like Jesus. You will be heard at the throne of grace just like Jesus knew He was heard. Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always (John 11:41,42). I think those are some of the most blessed statements that Jesus ever made, and I am sure the Father smiled on His throne when He heard them. Oh, I want to live in the love of the Lord so I can say, “My Jesus always hears me and makes intercession to the Father for me.”

You never have to worry about reaching the Father because Jesus makes intercession for true children of God. It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us (Romans 8:34). Jesus will connect you with the Father through love.

On Duty for God

You have to be secure in the love of God and take responsibility in this final hour because God is counting on you to take His Gospel to the world. At one time, the Lord asked Isaiah, “Who will go and tell the people my message?” Isaiah said, “Not I, Lord! Those people have rebelled against you and don’t want any part of you, so don’t send me!” Then the Lord in His great love told an angel to take a coal of fire from the altar of God and to lay it on Isaiah’s mouth; and when that love poured into Isaiah’s soul, he changed. He actually became scared to death that God would send somebody else to the people; so he jumped out on the front line and said, Here am I; send me (Isaiah 6:8). Divine love made the difference.

In this final hour, we also must take front-line duty and say, “Here am I, Lord. Send me; use me! You can depend on me to tithe, to give unto you, to pray and to fast. I will be your light; I will be the salt; I will be everything you want me to be. I have taken up my cross, denied myself, and I am following Jesus. Nothing is going to stop me now! I am wearing your shoes, and I am going to walk all the way to Heaven with you.”

The Early Church disciples slipped off their shoes, left their way of life and put on Jesus’ shoes. They didn’t know they could ever wear His shoes, but they all had them on when they came down from the Upper Room. Those shoes fit Simon so well that he felt like preaching! But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them…Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it (Acts 2:14,22-24).

“Simon, aren’t you afraid?”

“No. These shoes have given me security, and I feel bolder than a thousand lions.”

“Simon, the people could kill you!”

“It doesn’t make any difference because they crucified the Son of God, and they are guilty!”

Simon spoke with so much of the love of God that the people said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls (Acts 2:37-39,41).

“Oh, Simon, how did you make that happen?”

“I recognized my responsibilities to Jesus and didn’t shirk any of them. I did what I was supposed to have done.”

Stephen Gave His Life

Stephen was responsible to the Lord and had given Him his whole life saying, “I willingly give all my strength and my life to you; now, use me however you want to.” So Stephen preached a sermon that would echo and re-echo down through the years, and it is still sounding forth through the Holy Spirit today. What did it cost? It cost Heaven its brightest jewel—Jesus—and then it cost the life of a boy named Stephen who had given his life for that love gift of God.

When they [the people] heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed on him [Stephen] with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. Then they cried out with a loud voice, and stopped their ears, and ran upon him with one accord, And cast him out of the city, and stoned him: and the witnesses laid down their clothes at a young man’s feet, whose name was Saul. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep (Acts 7:54-60). Stephen died a love-death, and nobody can die a more glorious death than that. He had the same love and forgiveness that Jesus had.

Do you have that love today? Is it easy for you to forgive others, or do you turn something someone did or said to you over and over in your mind? Do you wrestle with it or walk the floor with it at night? If you would bask in the love of God, you would be able to sleep rather than lying awake with anger and resentment churning on the inside of you. That is what the devil wants, saith the Lord; but if you go into divine love and stay in that love, you can wrap God’s love blanket around you and find warmth when the chilly winds of the devil come against you.

Stephen gave himself to Jesus, and it cost him his life; and it is going to cost you your life, too, in one way or another. When I got saved, I gave my whole life to the Lord; and I had nothing more to give. I said, “Lord, use my life any way you want to, whether it is all at one time or a little bit at a time. My life is all yours, and I will never say no.”

Give Your Whole Life

I am not afraid to live or to die for the sake of Christ; and when you think like that, there is nothing to be afraid of. Jesus said, Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27). Even so, most Christians think that people have a right to fear; but that is not what Jesus said.

Are you afraid and running scared? If so, stop at the next service station and fill up with God’s love. God gave you this sermon so you could fill up on Him and so you would see Jesus and receive more of His love, grace and faith than ever before. He gave it to make you a greater witness than you have ever been and to make it possible for Him to project more of His light through you. He gave it so you would be seasoned with all of Him and so He could serve Himself to people through you.

We cannot look at our responsibilities and decide which ones we want and which ones we don’t want. We must say, “Lord, I will be responsible for anything you want.” I would not be alive today if it had not been for Jesus. My soul was in a dying condition with the penalty of eternal death upon it, but Jesus came and saved me when I was eighteen. He delivered me and set my soul free for eternity. When I was twenty-three, my body was in a dying condition; and He came and set it free, too. Then my free body and soul were all His to use. My cry every day was and still is, “I have come to do your will.” Lo, I come to do thy will, O God (Hebrews 10:9).

The Love of the Bride

Jesus paid a great price for the Church. Just as the woman came from the opened side of the first Adam, the Church came from the pierced side of the Second Adam, Jesus, on Calvary when He purchased the Church with His own blood. Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood (Acts 20:28).

Adam had great love for Eve; it was perfect love, and Christ has perfect love for the Church. Jesus will never lose that love, and no storm will ever destroy it. The Bride will be clothed in His perfect love and grace and in His goodness and mercy. She will walk in that perfect love in this final hour, and she will be what God wants her to be. She has the veil of consecration and dedication, and that veil of love separates her from the world. She is pure and clean; and she delights in Him, and He delights in her. He is drawing her, and she is running after Him. Draw me, we will run after thee (Song of Solomon 1:4).

Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners (Song of Solomon 6:10)? Who is she with eyes so clear? Who is she with all of that strength? She is the Bride of Christ; and with His love in perfection, she will finish her work. She will serve cups of cold water to those in need no matter how much effort it takes. She will serve her Lord whether she is in prison or out of prison; she will serve Him as she serves the people. Her love will be His love, and she will give the Jesus touch to all those in the world who desire it; and then the end will come, saith the Lord.

Come to Jesus

I want you to open up to the love of God today. Your home may be broken, and you may have caused it. You may have failed in your responsibilities and failed to train your children in the ways of God, and now they are lost and undone.

“What can I do, Preacher?”

Come to Jesus today. He loves you; and He came to deliver those who have failed, to make the weak strong and the sinful righteous.

Lift up your hand and say this prayer right now: Oh, God, I have sinned against you. Lord, I have failed you, and I am so sorry; but I have come home, and I am going to serve you for the rest of my life. I do believe in you and in your love, and I believe your love was so great that you died for me and gave your life that I might have life. I believe there is power in your blood and that your blood washes away all of my sins. Come on in, Jesus! Come on in! If you meant that prayer, He has come; and He is yours.

Love Brings Miracles

To you who are sick and afflicted, I say, “Jesus cares.” You may have suffered for so long that it seems He doesn’t care and that He will never give you your miracle, and that was the way it seemed to be for me when I was so sick. It seemed like Jesus was too late, but He was not. Thousands have been healed because the Lord is the Almighty One, and His power will flow to you today.

Lord, I bring the sick and afflicted to you—those with cancer, diabetes, AIDS, heart trouble, paralysis or any other manner of sicknesses and diseases. Lord, I bring them all to you now. Heal! in the holy name of Jesus. Heal! The healing, miracle power is flowing, and it will go into your body if you will believe. Live for the Lord and watch for all improvements daily as God’s power works. Then give God all the praise, the honor and the glory.

Write and tell me what happened to you, and I will be so happy for you. He is my Lord and your Lord. His name is Jesus, and He loves you. Be thou made whole.