It's so good to be back home. I'm so glad to see you, old friends and new friends.
I love you all!
That's the message I want to share with you: love, God's love.
Actually, it's based on a message I received while in Israel,
     at a prophecy conference hosted by Ohalei Rachamim (Tents of Mercy).
So I owe my inspiration to David Harwood, pastor of a congregation on Long Island.
     After I heard it, I said to Pamela, I can't think of one person in our congregation
     who doesn't need to hear this message!

The text for my message is John 3:16.
     That's right: the one that appears behind the goal posts at football games!
     It may be familiar to most of us, but it needs to get deep in our spirits,
     because we don't always hear it the way God intended it.
Here's the way some people read this verse:
     "For God so desired to destroy the devil that He gave his only begotten son
     so whoever believes in him would not perish but exercise authority over the devil."
     Interesting... but that's not what it says!
     Here's another: "For God so valued the potential of a redeemed humanity that He gave
     his only son so whoever in him would be worked on the Holy Spirit,
     get brought to heaven, and be made into something that God could actually like."
     (I.e., God doesn't like us as we really are, he just sees our potential....)
     How about this: "For God so hated the world but desired to show that He is the King
     so He gave his only son to save some people he didn't even like,
     just to show that He's a great king."
     Or: "For God is such a wonderful person that He gave his only son
     that whoever believes in him would never perish but be spared what they really deserved."
     Actually, I have to admit that I've actually thought such things!
Yet here's the way the verse actually reads: "For God so loved the world loved the world."
     The next verse, 17, says, "For God did not send his Son into the world
          to condemn the world, but to save the world through him."

You could wonder why God would bother to love us.
     Has anyone ever wondered that?
     King David did, when he wrote Ps 8, "What is man that you are mindful of him?"
     Many people, including many believers, actually think
          it is impossible to know why God loves us.
Well, here's why: God created us to be lovely to him.
     So He says in Song of Songs 6:4: "You are beautiful, my darling,
          as Tirzah, lovely as Jerusalem."
God created humanity so that humanity would attract his love,
     As surely as Shanamit attracted the love of Shlomo. He made it that way.
You are irresistable to Him! You push His buttons!
     God created people in such a way that it provokes a response of attraction,
     a response of desire, a response of love.
Humanity was created as a bride for the son.
     The Lord does not want to married to someone that he doesn't even love!
He made humanity to be lovely to him.
     God is not going to wake up, roll over in his bed, look at his bride, and say,
          "Love is not a feeling, it's an act of my will."
John 3:16 doesn't say: "God so willed to love humanity, because he was so self-controlled
     that he acted in a loving way and gave his only son, because love is not a feeling,
     it's an act of will."
     That's a lie! The truth is: God so loved the world.
     He doesn't just love your potential. He loves you, as you are, now!

When the Father and the Holy Spirit said to each other, "Let us make a bride for the son!"
     they said, "Let us make her to be lovely! Let us bless the Son."
And when the Father and the Son spoke about making humanity for the Spirit,
     they said, "Let us make a temple for the spirit, where he would love to dwell,
     that would free him, to express our love in power."
The Son and the Spirit had counsel together. The Son said, "Look how the Father loves me!
     Let's make sons. Let's make children who would give the Father pleasure!
     Let us multiply joy in heaven!"
The Father said, "Look how much Son loves me! It gives me such pleasure.
     I want my son to experience this pleasure.
     Let us make sons that would give my son this pleasure."
And God looked around and said, "What can we do to make this lovely thing?
     How can we make people to be lovely and beautiful?"
     So He got an idea. God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness."
So when he created Adam and Eve, God lost his heart,
     because we were so lovely to him.
How lovely? Lovely enough to die for!
     It was God losing himself to bring his bride back to himself.
     It was God losing himself to bring his sons back to himself.
     It was God losing himself to bring his temple back to himself, cleansing it again.
     It was act of love.
You were worth dying for. You are the very image of God.
     You are not a cartoon character. You are the very image of God.
He created you so He would love you. He succeeded. He is a great creator.
     He really loves you. He really loves the lost.
Not just because He's such a wonderful person. This wonderful person loves you.

God loves you so much, He's jealous.
     He loves you so much that He wants you to be completely his.
     "You are not going to love other gods. You are not going to have any other gods."
He says, "I am your God. I am your husband. I am your king."
     He wants his people for himself because we are that lovely to him.
     And as He possesses us in his love, as we fall into his love, we are set free.
     Is this OK? Can you live with this kind of love?
It may be possessive, but it's also liberating!
     He wants you to be filled with his love, his life, as full as he made you to be!
Genesis 9:6 says, "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed;
     for in the image of God has God made man."
So you see, even after humanity fell, God still saw the image of God in him. He still does!
     Fallen humanity is still the image of God. But people love the wrong things.
James 3:9 says, "With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father,
     and with it we curse men, who have been made in God's likeness."
     The image of God is still in you, and your neighbor. Should you curse or bless?
     Yes, humanity has been cursed by sin.
     But how is the curse removed? By the blood of Messiah, sacrificed for you.
     Once Messiah has taken the curse from you, what do you look like, in God's sight?
     Do you really believe this? Deep down in your heart? You've got to believe this!

The bride that God desires has given herself to another.
     But God is determined to bring Israel back to himself, because He loves Israel!
     He loves every person! He is determined to bring each back to himself.
Ezekiel 16 describes his love for Israel, his bride:
     10 "I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put leather sandals on you.
     I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments.
     11 I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and
     a necklace around your neck..."
So HaShem has lavished His love upon Israel! Yet she has scorned him:
     15 "But you trusted in your beauty and used your fame to become a prostitute.
     You lavished your favors on anyone who passed by and your beauty became his."
How revolting and detestable is her sin ... our sin!
     23 'Woe! Woe to you,' declares the Sovereign LORD.
But this is not the end of the story! In spite of all her sin and consequences of sin,
     God makes her yet another promise:
     60. "Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth,
     and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you."
Amazing! Why? Why does He take back to himself a wife who made herself a prostitute?
     Why does God tell the Hosea to take his wayward wife Gomer back again?
     Because He still loves her!
     In Hosea 2:14, the Spirit of God says, "Therefore I am now going to allure her;
          I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her."
     He will allure her! He wants Israel back! He wants you back!
     He speaks tenderly to his beloved! And he declares to her:
     19 "I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice,
          in love and compassion."
Why? Why? Because He made you to be lovely to him! You provoke his response of love!
     21 "In that day I will respond," declares the LORD--
     "I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth..."
     All creation is waiting in eager expectation for humanity to respond to his love!

That is both liberating ... and frightening. What is the penalty for adultery, for idolatry?
     The penalty is death. The soul that sins, it must die.
But God bore the penalty for us so that God could have us back.

Our hearts can betray this love. Our hearts can cheat our God.
     So it is necessary for us to return to the Lord, to present ourselves to God,
     and say, Lord, take me back, forgive me, take me back.
And he does it, every time, because he values us, and he made a way,
     through the precious blood of Yeshua, to return.
Let us pray: take us back!
     Take us back Lord!

Now it is only as we know this love and are convinced of his love
     that we able to be priests to God on behalf of others.
     When we begin to understand the love He has,
     then we begin to have over our hearts a priestly breastplate,
     which speaks of our loving commitment to that which God loves.

It is impossible to walk with the Lord without knowing God's love.
     It is impossible to please the Lord without appreciating His love.
We love because He first loved us.
     He gave his son because He loves you, as you are. You are beautiful to him.
     He made you to be lovely to him.
Now we are fallen, and it is difficult to believe this, and you've lived without love,
     but you don't have to stay there, because the word has come:
     "God so loved the world that he gave his only son!"
Believe this love! Believe the motivation behind the sacrifice.
     The motive is: He loves you!
     He wants his children to come home, his bride to return.

What do you have to do be loved by God?
     Nothing! He made you to be lovely.
Everything that you do for him after realizing that he loves you is called a blessing to God.
     He is not a difficult God to please, because you are already pleasing to him.
     How pleasing? Pleasing enough to die for.
     Lovely enough to get down on his knees and wash the dirt off your feet!
     Lovely enough to touch you when are a leper ... or you feel like one!
     Lovely enough to offer you living water, welling up to eternal life.
     Lovely enough to cry for you, even when you do not understand his love for you!
This is the good news!
     He loves us, and he loves each person out there.
     There is no better news. It's true news. We've got it on good authority.
     It is such a privilege to know this love which surpasses knowledge,
     that does not depend on what we do, made to be lovely to him,
     created in his image.
Turn to someone and tell him or her, God really does love you!

This is good news! Does it make you glad?
     Throw down your shields against his love. Accept his love!
The next time you hear someone say, "I don't know why God loves us."
     Tell him, you know why. He made us to be lovely to him.
Moshe Morrison, whom I met in Israel -- before he made aliyah to Israel,
     he founded a Messianic congregation in Baltimore --
     Moshe once saw a sign that said,
     "God is watching you." How would this sign make you feel?
     Well, here's what the next line on that sign says:
     "... because He just can't take His eyes off of you!"
     "You're too good to be true! Can't take my eyes off of you!"
You may have to retrain your minds to believe this and just receive his love.
     The same love that the Father has for the Son, He has for us. We are joint heirs.
     I can boldly go to the Father, because He wants me to come!

1 John 4:17. "In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him."

Let's sing, "In his presence."
As Sha'ul wrote in Ephesians 3:17-19, My desire and my prayer for each of you
     is that "you, being rooted and established in love,
     may have power, together with all the saints,
     to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Messiah,
     and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--
     that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

How wide is His love? Wider than the universe!
How long is His love? Longer than eternity!
How high is His love? Higher than heaven!
How deep is His love? Deeper than the deepest pit from which He has saved you!

There are no limits to His love!
     Let us press on, press in to know his love,
     to dwell in his presence,
     where there is no fear, but there is confidence in his love,
     where there is no hurt, but there is comfort in his love,
     where there is no rejection, but there is acceptance in his love,
     where there is no sorrow, but there is fullness of joy,
     in his presence, in his love!