David Diga Hernandez - 4 Invitations Jesus Gives You

This message I am going to minister to you tonight is something that I believe will become foundational to your spiritual life. We live in a time of great compromise, great deception, and a great falling away—even in the church. Yes, even in the church. The enemy has assaulted the body of Christ with deception, and there are people whose roots don’t go deep. Because their roots don’t go deep, when trials come, when opposition comes, when the world threatens their faith, they are gone. Lord, don’t let that be me. Paul the Apostle said, «Lest I become myself a castaway.» Paul wrote that what you are going to hear tonight is something the Holy Spirit wants you to hear. Take very seriously the word of God. For if you are not rooted in the word of God, you are easy prey for deception.

So, I want to minister a word tonight, and my prayer is that this message will stoke the fires of your love for Jesus—that you would be so passionately in love with Jesus that you would carry what the martyrs carried; that you would carry such love that no request is too much, no sacrifice too great, and no command too difficult. I pray that your love for Jesus would be a mighty force that overcomes even yourself. God, help us to be people who love Jesus more than anything else. What does Romans 5:5 say? The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. There is no one on earth who loves Jesus more than the Holy Spirit loves Jesus. It is my prayer that the same love with which the Holy Spirit loves Jesus would be our love too—that everything in us would be for Him.

My goal today is to agitate your holy jealousy so that you might say, «Lord, I want to know you more. I don’t want to be in the outer circle. Lord, I want to be in the inner circle.» Jesus loves us all equally. I want you to know that, believer—Jesus loves each and every one of us equally. But He can only trust you in proportion to your obedience. It is one thing to say Jesus loves me; it is another to say Jesus trusts me. Do you want to walk in His power? Do you want to carry the glory in your life? Do you want to be a mighty weapon in the hand of the Father, with which He brings destruction to the kingdom of darkness? Then He has to be able to trust you with His power in life.

Your passion for the Lord does not have to ebb and flow. I think all too often we buy into church culture myths and clichés, and we say things like, «Well, I’m in my backsliding phase.» Saying I’m in my backsliding phase as a Christian is like saying I’m in my cheating phase as a spouse. There’s no such thing as a cheating phase; there’s no such thing as a period where you can go and do whatever you want to break that covenant. No! When I’m redeemed by the blood of Jesus, I’m in covenant with Him. I want nothing and no one else to move me from that place. I want to know Him.

I see in Philippians 3:10 this verse, and when I see it, everything in me burns to have what the writer is talking about in Philippians 3:10: «That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.» You have to know Him before you know His power and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death. This is the mystery of the fellowship of His sufferings. You know, Jesus has an inner circle, much like I pray you have an inner circle. You’re not going to announce on Facebook some of the things you would only tell your spouse. Some of you do, and we call that drama, but that’s a different sermon for a different time. However, you’re not going to announce to the world those things about you that are only known through intimacy: the way you think, the way you feel, your insecurities, your hurts, your worries—those are things you reserve for those who know you intimately.

And let me tell you something, though we may not like to hear it, Jesus is the same way. I have my inner circle; there are things I will tell certain people. There are things I will trust with certain people that if I were to announce it, you would say, «Huh, he’s got issues.» And that’s true of everyone. You see, there are invitations that Jesus has given to the church—invitation that Jesus has given to the world. Really, if you can just follow Him, He draws you deeper and deeper into His heart. In John 1:39, we see that Jesus says, «Come and see.» This is His first invitation—come and see. This is where the sinner becomes a saint; this is where the one with a broken marriage, the one with a broken body, the one with a fractured mind can come to Him and see that Jesus is the Deliverer, that Jesus is the Healer, that Jesus is the Savior. But this is where many people get stuck. For the rest of their lives, they go from deliverance to deliverance, all the while never really surrendering to Jesus. They go from experience to experience while never maturing in their faith. They want to come and see, and they want to get just close enough to be comforted—not close enough to be challenged. They want to come and see the miracles, and that’s wonderful; they want Him to restore their marriage, and He’ll do it. But Jesus sends out another cry, another invitation.