Teague Bible Church

I am pastoring my first church, I am 29 at the time, I am teaching on a Sunday morning, and out of the corner of my eye I see my 2-year-old girl being passed around from person to person until the message was over.
Everybody wanted to hold that little bundle of joy. Romans 5 was the text. When the service was over they hand her over to me and I noticed her little t-shirt which said, “God, If I Run Out Of Love Can I Get A Refill?”
The Word of God says that in the end days, “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold,” Matthew 24:12.
We can see why this is the case. Self-protection kicks in and people grow isolated and fearful. It does not have to be that way for the believer, but it is that way for the unbeliever.
Romans 5:1-11 is our text tomorrow, with the focus on 5: 6-11. Romans 5:5 says that, “The love of God has been poured out in our heart,” if we have truly given our whole life to Christ.
To stay with the analogy, we need to stop “holding back” that fullness of God’s love that is in us by the Holy Spirit, by disobedience. Living in isolation and fear is disobedience, make no mistake about it.
In other passages we have, ” Do not quench the Spirit,”
I Thessalonians 5:19, and, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God,” Ephesians 4: 30 a. ” Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh,” Galatians 5:16, or Ephesians 5:18, “Be filled with the Spirit.” That last one means to allow Who is already there, the Holy Spirit, to take up the space you make for Him.
We can do it our old way and get isolated, thinking we do not need the strength and fellowship of others, and/or be cold and not give space for the Holy Spirit to work and really love others heart- deep.
Why do we think we are going to run out of the love of God? That’s what it means when the Bible says, ” If you try to save your life; you will lose it, but if you lose your life for My sake you will save it.”
Fear says we will run out of resources, but God says we get a refill. It does not matter what age we may be in. It does not matter how impossible it looks at times. If you try to recover yourself, by running away, or entertaining yourself to death, or dreaming about a better batch of people to hang around; it just gets worst; and colder, and sad.
We have all said something like this, ” Lord I cannot do this, I guess many can do it, but I just can’t seem to get this, I guess I am a failure!” That is not a bad place to be. It is then, and only then, that the power of God can work. You just took your hands off of His workings; you are confessing to Him you cannot do His will in your own effort; you surrendered; and now you get a refill!
No matter what the money-motivated news reports say, we must continue to allow that “poured out” love of God to flow out of us by surrender to God ‘s will, afresh and anew!
How well I remember that little 2-year-old baby of mine; how dependent she was on me for life itself; how she totally trusted me; and how I would do anything in my power to give to her anything to continue the love flowing through her. God wants that for each one of us.

Ephesians 3:16-19, ” ,,,That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fulness of God.” JWP 6/2/18