SUNDAY WRAP UP

Today was a strong day in our worship service. From communion on I felt a special blessing of the Lord's presence with us. The worship teams did an excellent job of leading us into experiencing God. The theme of the service today was "His unconditional love." It is a subject that seems so hard to wrap our hearts and minds around. The performance trap of trying to earn God's love can easily hinder us from coming into a loving relationship with our heavenly Father and having a real relationship with Him. I believe it takes great faith and simple confidence to walk in assurance of knowing that He loves us unconditionally.

I would highly recommend you getting a CD/DVD of today's service.

Here is the outline of this morning's service.

God of the Second Chance

Pt. 2: Love Stinks

Last week I spoke on the God of the Second Chance…When we look at the life of Jonah we see one of the clearest examples of God’s unconditional love demonstrated to any group of people. In my reading this week I came across an outline that Chuck Swindoll wrote that I think accurately describes the life of Jonah..

Chapter 1 -- Jonah runs from God
Chapter 2 -- Jonah runs to God
Chapter 3 -- Jonah runs with God
Chapter 4 -- Jonah runs against God

This morning I want to talk about the foundation of all of our understanding of this relationship with the Creator and Redeemer of mankind -- the One who we talk to, depend on and struggle with for so much of our lives. I want to go beneath the surface of our lives and help us come to a greater understanding of God’s grace.

As we look at the life of Jonah, we find many of his struggles and frustrations are common to all of us. His anger, disobedience, prejudices, unforgiveness, questioning, discouragement, prayers, and pursuit of God are not uncommon to our own personal relationship with God.
Someone once said that a person's spiritual maturity is in direct proportion to their understanding and accepting of the unconditional love and grace of God.

One big Idea – The Love of God is unconditional and is demonstrated to us even though we don’t deserve it.

VERSE 1: GOD’S LOVE TOWARD ME NEVER CHANGES, EVEN WHEN I AM ANGRY WITH HIM.

VERSE 2: GOD’S LOVE TOWARD ME NEVER CHANGES, EVEN WHEN I ARGUE WITH HIM.
VERSE 3: GOD’S LOVE TOWARD ME NEVER CHANGES, EVEN WHEN I AM ACTING SELFISH.

VERSES 4-5: GOD’S LOVE TOWARD ME DOESN’T STOP, EVEN WHEN I STOP ACKNOWLEDGING HIM.

VERSE 6: GOD’S LOVE TOWARD ME NEVER CHANGES, EVEN WHEN I AM AN “UP-AND-DOWN” CHRISTIAN.

VERSES 7-9: GOD’S LOVES TOWARD ME NEVER CHANGES, EVEN WHEN I AM STUBBORN AND REFUSE TO CHANGE.

Here is Jonahs problem in a nut shell: This is story is all about Jonah, or so he thinks. The failure in Jonah's understanding of life is that he thought it was all about him. Jonah's frustrations and disapporintments are a result of it being "all about me" Jonahs happiness verses Gods plan. The fact is that if Jonah would have bought into God's plan, no matter how difficult it may have seemed he would have been one happy fellow..

VERSES 10-11: GOD LOVES ME EVEN, WHEN I SELFISHLY CHOOSE NOT TO LOVE OTHERS WITH THE SAME LOVE AS GOD LOVES ME.