Transcription
Thank you for joining us for another power-packed message provided by Monroe Global Incorporated and MonroeGlobal.com. We transform followers into leaders and leaders into agents of change. We hope that this message is a blessing to you as you advance your life and discover your purpose.
Now, let's go into the message: Kingdom Influence and the Culture of Love. I want to focus on understanding the power of love in the Kingdom of God. We've been talking a lot about faith the last two and a half months, and I want you to listen carefully as we kind of conclude the faith piece and tie it to this singles love connection. Here, this is probably more important for married people than single people.
First statement I want to remind you of, write this down, and that is: The purpose of a kingdom is to extend itself, to influence territory. The Bible is about a kingdom, and God's plan was to extend the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth. It's a very simple plan. God's purpose was to colonize Earth with Heaven. But the third point is very important: God wanted to fill the Earth with the culture of Heaven. Everybody say, "Culture." That's what kingdoms do.
The Bahamas is a result of a kingdom that's a thousand miles away who extended itself to these islands over 200 years ago, and they infested these islands with their culture. And that's why in our country, we drive on the left-hand side of the street because a kingdom culture us. That's why we speak English, you know, J-chap fell because our kingdom speaks English. That's why we drink tea more than coffee because in our kingdom, the king and queen drank coffee for over 200 years. I mean, tea, rather.
I remember when I used to wear a suit with short pants and long socks. That was a funny-looking sight. You imagine a suit like this with short pants and long socks? That's the way the king dressed. That's the way we dressed here when I was a kid. That's why all of our schools have uniforms. That's not normal. Our kingdom culture is a uniform country, so they transferred that to our islands. That's why our kids wear uniforms today. That's a sign of our kingdom influence.
In other words, when a kingdom extends itself to a foreign territory and colonizes it, the territory becomes exactly like the kingdom. And that leads me to my next point: Kingdoms expand their culture through a process called colonization. Why am I saying this? Because the Bible is really about colonization. The Bible is about the Kingdom of Heaven, which is invisible, extending its influence and rulership to Earth, which is visible, with the purpose of filling Earth with the culture of Heaven.
So, God's design was never to take Heaven to Earth. So, not rather take Earth to Heaven, rather, but to take Heaven to Earth. We pray to go to Heaven, and God is praying for Heaven to come to Earth. There are two opposite prayers going on. Matter of fact, when Jesus was asked a question by the disciples, "How should we pray?" the answer was: "Pray like this: Our Father, who is where? In Heaven." That's the foreign, that's the home country. "Holy is Your name." He says, and then he says, "Make a request: Thy kingdom come."
Now, when you ask for the kingdom to come, you're talking about the government and the culture. When the kingdom of Great Britain came to the Bahamas, they brought the government and the culture. As a matter of fact, you bring the governor, who brings the culture. And that's the prayer Jesus said to pray: "Pray that Earth be filled with Heaven. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth, just like it is in Heaven."
So, the entire passion of God is to fill Earth with the culture of Heaven. Therefore, the evidence of colonization is culture. You go to Cuba, you think you are in Spain because the Spanish kingdom colonized Cuba. You go to Haiti, you think you are in France because the French kingdom of Europe colonized Haiti. You go down to Curaçao, you think you are in Holland because that's what colonized Curaçao. You go down to Brazil, Brazil, you think you are in Portugal. Why? Because that's who colonized Brazil.
And so, every country takes on the culture of its kingdom when it's colonized. That includes the food, the dress, the manners, the laws, the thinking of the people, the actions, the lifestyle, everything comes in culture manifestation.
I want to talk about culture very quickly. Write this down, please. To understand culture, the most important component in life is environment. Environment is more important than anything else. As a matter of fact, environment is so important, God created it first. God created air before He created birds. He created water before He created fish. He created soil before He created plants. He created oxygen before He made you. In other words, He made the environment first, then He produced the products because products can only exist in the context of an environment.
Now, here's the issue about environment. Write this down: Everything was created to exist within a prescribed environment. That means everything that you see in life was designed to function in a specific type of environment. That leads to point number three, and that is: Environment is the priority in all of life. You want to know how important environment is? Simple. Take a fish out of water. Take a plant out of soil. Take a star out of the sky, it burns up as a meteorite. Take oxygen from a human, just block off the oxygen. You don't have to kill them, they all just die. Because environment is the most important thing in life.
Let me ask you another question, then: If you've got a great dream, it's like a seed. It's your dream. What's the only way for that dream to come to pass? You need the right environment. You could be around people who are toxic. Some people are pollution to your life, and they are causing you to even snuff out your powerful seed. That's why you've got to be careful who you even choose as friends. You could be choosing fertilizer or poison. Even the books you read can become poison or fertilizer. The environment is the most important thing.
Write this down, please: God created environment before He created life. Why? Because environment is defined as the unique condition within which a thing is supposed to grow and function. So, where there's no correct environment, there'll be malfunction. And here's the big statement for the morning. Write this down: Environment, therefore, is culture. The culture of a country can destroy the people or give the city life. And this is why whoever controls the culture will control the attitude of the country. The fight for planet Earth is really a fight for culture. Whoever controls the culture can determine what grows in that place.
And so, we need then to ask the big question: What is the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven? Because apparently, God made Earth for the culture of Heaven to exist on, which means that Earth was designed to function within the culture of Heaven.
I'll put another point here. Here's a picture of some Muslims bowing down, worshiping in their temple. That's culture. It's religious culture. You go to their country, that's what makes you different from them. You walk into their environment, and it's different. We don't bow down and and and and and and worship their culture the way they do. And so, the culture distinguishes us immediately.
Here comes some things about culture to write down. Number one: All nations manifest their uniqueness through culture. All nations. You can tell a difference between countries by the culture. And what's amazing is, culture is carried by the citizens. I can spot a Bahamian anywhere in Miami, especially in the mall. Two big bikes, slippers, and everything. I could spot a Trinidadian in Miami. A bag with three, four different yellow colors, blue, red, white, pink colors. That's their favorite bags when they go shopping. In other words, culture can be seen without a word.
Write this down: Culture is observable in a country. Culture is distinctive. You can tell the difference between peoples. You can lose your culture. In other words, a culture can become so dominant, it can absorb your culture. And that's what God's plan is. God wants Earth to be filled with the glory of Heaven, the culture of Heaven, until it absorbs so that all the kingdoms of the Earth shall become the kingdoms of God. The whole point is to absorb them into the culture of Heaven.
If you're in the Kingdom of God, there's supposed to be a distinction. And they shouldn't have to ask you if everybody's Christian. They can't tell if you're different. Everybody in the office lying, they don't know what country you come from. Heaven? Our Earth? We don't know where you come from. You're shacking up, she's shacking up. One of them says they're Christian. Somebody's wrong here, because all you can't be shacking up in the Kingdom of God. You don't shack up. You see, the culture distinguishes you.
This point here is very critical: Culture reveals the essence of a people. If you want to know what people are like, check the culture. And number four is very powerful: Culture is both personal and corporate. Every person from a country represents the country, and every country represents the person. So, when you say you are from a country, your personal behavior reflects on your people. That is why people have no respect for Christians because the individuals keep on misrepresenting Christ. You ever heard this? "Boy, if she's a Christian, I don't want to be one." What they're saying is, "What you're saying and what you're doing ain't representing what you're saying."
When I stand up around the world on television or anywhere I go to speak, and when I stand up, I've got to keep being reminded myself that I am representing the Kingdom of God, the Bahamas, my family, and my church. So I can be careful how I behave. I can't be caught doing things that misrepresent my family and my country. Every time I'm tempted to sin, I think about the church. Boy, I can't do this for the sake of my people. How about you? Do you do that? Do you think about that? That's when you're ready to sin privately. Culture is both personal and corporate. Then there's no such thing as a private sin. You know you are part of a country. It's called Heaven.
Write this down, please: Culture is created, and then it creates you. Please write that down in big letters. That's important. Culture is created first by the people, and then it creates the people. You don't teach your children how to build your culture; they grow up in it. But that culture was created by some people. So, culture is so powerful. First, you create it, and then it takes over and starts creating you.
Point number six: Culture is a product of law. That is the most important statement about culture. What is culture? A product of what? Law. Say it again: Culture is a product of law. Say it loud: Culture is a product of law. Say it loud: Culture is... a little louder. Culture is... repeat it loud. Come on! Culture is a product of law. What does that mean? It means that whoever creates the laws creates the culture of the country. So, if you want to change the culture of the country, just change the laws. That's why the people who want to change the culture concerning marriage, they ain't worried about you fussing and placards and demonstration; they're going after the legislators. "If we can get the law changed, the whole culture will change."
That's why when God was creating the nation of Israel from slaves, they had nothing, no laws, no nothing. The first thing God gave Moses was law. "Why? I'm going to create a new culture," God says. "In this country, you worship no other God. There's no adultery, no stealing, no lying, no killing." In other words, He was creating culture.
Do you know what's wrong with the Christian Church? They made grace more important than law, and they define grace as permission to sin. So, he gets forgiven again. And the first declaration Jesus made in His ministry, first declaration was: "Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Second declaration: "I didn't come to destroy the law. I didn't come to give you permission to break law," He said, "but I came to fulfill it. I came to give you the power to obey it."
If you want to know what's wrong with your country, including us, lawlessness. You can always tell a lawless country by the amount of laws the country has to keep creating. A country is dying when there have to be continual additions of laws. And so, we keep creating laws in our country because we are lawless organizations. You are supposed to learn to obey law in your house, not in prison. Y'all stay with me for a second. But because you didn't learn to obey in the house, then they put you in the big house up there and tell you when to get up, when to go to bed, when to eat, what to wear, what to do, what to watch, and when to go back to bed. They make you completely full of law because you didn't learn law in your house.
My mother and father had an interesting life for law. My mother said, "Okay, let me lay down the law. Don't put your feet on the furniture." So, once in a while, we forget the law. She didn't repeat. Your head was on the ground. You go pick it up. "Thank you, Mama." You put your foot down. Law has to be enforced. Me say, "Well, the Lord will, will, will the Lord punish you?" Yes. It's a country, but the Lord is love. Boy, my mother loved us. Bop! Pick your head up. "I love you." She was training me to obey law. And if you can't obey your mother and father, who tells you you're going to obey your boss on the job?
When Paul told the people in the New Testament, he said, "When you go to your job," he says, "Obey your masters." The word "master" there means, you know, your managers. We are having difficulty with law in society because we didn't get it in the house. I remember one time I stole a troin. Troin? You have no idea about that. If you're below 20 years old, a troin is three pence in one. I stole a troin, and my mother asked all 11 children, "Who took this?" All of them looked at me because I looked guilty. My mother had a way. She just... she'd go, "You." She's the home run on us, and I got wailing for three, for three pennies. I mean, I got whooped. And while she was beating me, it was it was one of them kind of beatings that you hated where she talked on every stroke. "Didn't I tell you to not touch what does not belong to you? When are you going to learn? You must not steal. I brought you into this world, and I'll take you out." Oh, God. Anybody ever been there? Let me see your hands. All those who've been there. Yes, sir.
Boy, I used to hate them kind of beatings. Mom just said, "It stops." That's when I liked them kind of beatings. "Stop." Thank you. But guess what? That whooping taught me to touch any money I saw anywhere. Even when I was walking down the street, I saw troin, I walked around. She was teaching me to obey law. So, when you work in the bank, you don't take money out of the kitty. You got whooped at home. That's our problem. Cursing was not allowed in our house. You know what curse was in our house? "Hip." That was a curse. "B-get hit. Don't say that." "What am I supposed to say?" "Anything else, but don't say that." "I don't know what else to say." "My rare." That's obviously rare. She said, "That's fine. Rare is fine." I heard little kids cursing their parents, no obedience to the law, no respect for adults. "Don't walk in the room." My mother said, "You all get up." "Yes, sir." She said, "I don't sit down until they sit down." "We walk by a church, take your hat off." "Yes, ma'am." "Respect the house of God." "Yes, ma'am." Put it back on. People enter the church today and steal offerings. No law. May God have mercy on us.
Culture is produced by law. So, my mother and father had a new culture, a different culture in our house. People around us were doing stuff we couldn't do. It was a new culture, different culture in our house. And the culture was by the laws they laid down.
All right, let me show you something very important. What the word "culture" means. Write this down. The word "culture." It means to culture. But here's what it means: It means to actually grow. It means to develop. To culture means to train something. To culture means to influence something so that it goes the way you desire it to go. Powerful words here. Culture means to grow in an environment, to grow in an environment that controls the growth of something or how something develops. The Kingdom of God is a country with a culture, and God wants you to grow within that culture so that culture can become your lifestyle.
Now, let me read something that's very interesting about how culture is applied. You're writing too slow. The currency of the Kingdom of God is faith. Every country has currency in the economy. But here's the important issue: The culture of the kingdom is love. Now, when you're going to do business in a country, you've got to do it according to the culture. So, you've got faith, that's fine, belief. But you've got to operate that faith within the culture of the country, which is love.
Faith actually cannot work where love isn't present. Paul says, "If I have faith to move a mountain, but don't have love, it profits me nothing." Paul says, "If I give offerings to the poor, but don't do it in the culture of love, it profits me nothing." He said, "If I speak in tongues of angels, but don't do it in the culture of love, I'm just a noisy cymbal." Boy, love is important. Love is more important than faith. We've been talking about faith a lot the last few weeks, but now comes the other part. How's it going to work?
Read this verse with me. It's found in the book of Galatians, chapter 5:6. It says this: "For in Jesus Christ, there is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision." In other words, it's not rituals or not rituals, but it is what? Faith, which worketh by love. You can do all of your religious symbols, all your religious customs, you can do all the regalia that your churches go through, all your stuff, you can fast, you can do all kinds of stuff, and faith still shuts down. Fasting can be come nullified where there's no love. Giving can be nullified where there's no love. Prayer can be nullified where there is no love. The whole operation of the Kingdom of God is in the atmosphere of love.
So, love is the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven in which faith functions. And we must live by what? Faith. But faith only can work if there is love in the environment. Now, here comes the tough part of my session here, then. And that is this: Faith worketh by love. Then the greatest thing is the environment, which is what? Love. You know, write this down: This is the greatest love of all. The greatest thing that you should love is yourself. Otherwise, your faith, your faith shuts down.
Let me prove what I'm talking about. Self-love is a product of self-worth. If you don't think you have any worth, you hate yourself. If you think you have worth, then you fall in love with yourself. So, the key to self-love is self-worth. And you can never love beyond yourself. You can only love people to the degree you love yourself. So, yourself is the key to your faith working.
Let me give you another perspective on that. You can never discover your self-worth without discovering God. Because God is the source of your life and value. And worth depends on the material that you have. This is tough to teach, okay? What do you have on your feet right now? Shoes, right? If it's a leather shoe, where did it come from? Cow. Okay, all right. But they are different kinds of leather. Watch this. You go in the store to buy a pair of shoes. Ladies probably understand this better than men. Some men do it, but you can look at five pairs of shoes on the rack, and they're all shoes, but they have different worth. Therefore, they have different value. Therefore, they've got different cost. But they're all leather.
Here's what I mean: You've got snake leather, crocodile leather, cow leather, whale leather, all the different leather. Okay? Now, if you, if you buy a cow leather and compare it to, let's say, crocodile leather, they're two different prices. And crocodile probably costs more than the cow because cows are more common than crocodiles, and it's easier to prepare leather from a cow than leather from a crocodile. And so, the value depends on the source. Stay with me now. So, if you know where something comes from, you know how much it's worth.
That's rocks. Rocks come from mountains. Mountains ain't worth nothing. So, the amount of piece of rock you get, you don't get nothing for the rock. But if you find a diamond, if you cut a diamond, it's, you've got double value. Now you split it in four, you even got triple value. Now, why? Because it doesn't lose its value because of where it came from. The table in your house is no more valuable than the tree it came from. Now, if you're a tree, is it a kamalam? Is it a Bahamian tree? Right? Yeah, kamalam or of your tree is mahogany? Two different prices for the tables. So, the source determines the worth.
Your self-worth, therefore, should never be created by your society. You didn't come from your society. People's opinions of you shouldn't tell you how much you're worth. No government can pass a law to tell you how much you're worth. We allow people to give us worth. And here's where love falls into trouble: When you go around looking for people to give it to you. Let me tell you the secret: 90% of people know you don't like you. Let me say it slow: 90% of the people who know you don't like you. And you're asking them to give you worth? Now, they, now they will give it to you. Now, but they make sure to give you less than they are, less than they have. They can devalue you right away. They make sure you ain't more valuable than they are. See? So, you can't trust people to get your worth from.
So, self-love is discovering where you came from. That's why you can't find it without God. Write this statement down: God is the source of your self-worth. You didn't come from Earth; you came down from Heaven. The Bible says God created you in His image and in His substance, His nature, His likeness. And therefore, you have God's material. And that means that God is the source of your true love for yourself. God is the source of love. That's why the Bible says, "He is love."
You can love a thing more than it's worth. Let me try another way. I love you all. Okay, listen to me. If you want to know how valuable the thing is, check how much they're offering for you. You can buy a Timex watch for $5, or you can buy a Rolex for $5,000. Both tell time. All you want is time. Or do you? The person who buys a Rolex watch really doesn't want to tell time. And some people get married that way. They marry Timexes. "Why? All I want is sex." Bomb. Finish. You know? No, no, no. Wait a minute. You need a Rolex if you've got value. You want to be with a Rolex too. If you're Rolex, you want Rolex. And it may cost you more for that relationship. Some people, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap, cheap. Offer them anything, they just can't open up for you. Here you go. Bomb. You know, a prostitute is a, it's a Timex. Oh boy. Let me say. Okay, let me go over here. They're feeling hostile over there. I know y'all love me over here on this side. Yeah. All right. Feel a little safe over here. Yeah. Y'all okay?
So, here's the point to never forget: You can tell how much a thing is worth by how much they pay for it. So, God decided He wanted to buy you back. Christ didn't die for you, young man, young woman, to give you value. He died for you to prove your value. That's why He had to give Himself. Now, the Bible says He is the expressed image of God, and you were made in the image of God. So, the only one that He can use to trade for you was that which was equal to it. You can already tell your worth by how much they paid for you. You should shout right there. Give God a hand for praise and give Him praise. Hallelujah.
Now, if you've got that revelation, you'll never hate yourself again. You are, you are that valuable. You are God's value. He paid Himself to buy you back. That's the word "redemption." It means to, to actually own twice. To redeem means to own again. Look at this verse: "God is love." If God is love, and you came out of God, then you are love. You are God's substance. Are you with me? Can you give me a bottle there, please? I want to do this demonstration again. Come, come, bring it. Bring one of them glasses with you. I want everyone to see this demonstration. Okay, open that bottle for me. I want to show you what God did. Okay, no, no, no. You hold the glass. Yeah. And folks, they can't see you. So, we've got to let everybody see this. All right. I want you to see where you get self-love from. God did this. This is God, and that's you. Anybody see that? So, whatever is in this bottle is in this glass. This bottle is called what? The source. Why? It came from the glass. Came from here. It's a source. The word for source in Hebrew is the word "Abba." Abba. We pronounce it as Father. When God says, "I am your Father," He ain't talking about daddy. The word He uses is "Source." "I am your Source. You came out of Me." Question: How valuable is the liquid in that glass? How valuable is that? Whatever the value this is, yeah. So, you can't say you love this and hate that. Why? "I feel like running all of a sudden." That's you, and you hate yourself. "I don't hate myself." Oh, yes, you do. I'm going to prove it right now, and then we'll go home. Matthew 22. Thank you, sir. You can stand right here, though. I don't want you to leave. Yeah. Hold, hold God for me. All right. Look at this verse. A gentleman came to Jesus Christ and asked Him a question: "What is the most important commandment in the law?" There are 669 laws in the Old Testament, and the Pharisees tried to keep all of them. No wonder why they never made it. So, this man was a Pharisee, and he said to Jesus, "What is the most important law of all the 669 laws in the Bible? What's the most important? What's the number one law that everyone should obey?" Christ answered this way: He said, "The most important law is to love God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength." And then He says, "And to love your neighbor as yourself."
Now, most of us read the scripture as if it says, "To love your neighbor." That's not what it says. You missed the scripture. He said, "The most important thing to do is to love God." Now, to love God means to pursue God, to study God, to get to know God's nature, His character, His wisdom, His qualities. You want to know God. Now, why does He say the first thing to try and get to know God? Because when you get to know the bottle, you discover the glass. Oh, I'm going home. Y'all, please don't miss this point. Please wake up. He says, "Look, study the bottle. Learn that bottle. What's in the bottle? What's it made up of? What's it full up? What's it like? What's the nature of it? The qualities, the character." Come on. He said, "Because when you do that, you discover the glass."
If you get a revelation of the bottle, look what He says: "He says the second is just like the first." In other words, once you get the glass, I mean, the bottle clear, all of a sudden you realize, "Hey, that's me. I came out of that." If that's holy, I'm holy. If that's righteous, I'm righteous. If that's awesome, I'm awesome. If that's mighty, I'm mighty. If that's righteous, I'm righteous. If that's powerful, I'm powerful. Woo! I'm the same stuff.
Let me tell you something. All of my Bahamian friends, I was born in B-Town, South Street, third house down from the red barrel, next to the potcake, standing under the coconut tree. I used to sweep the dirt to keep the dirt clean with a coconut branch. Today, my books are in 87 countries. 17 bestselling books. One just hit number six on USA Today this week. I was born in B-Town, sweeping dirt. Now, listen to me. Something happened to my head. I'm giving you the secret that would change me. It's this one point: I discovered that I came not from B-Town, I came out of the bottle.
Let me tell you something. Every time they tried to trap Jesus, they kept asking a question: "Where you from?" They keep asking, "Where you from?" They said, "We know your mother, we know your brothers, we know your sisters. You're from Nazareth, born in Bethlehem, you grew up in..." We know. He says, "I came down from My Father." What is Father? Source. Don't let them make you a Bahamian or an American. That's too limited. You are trapped by the culture you relate to. He said, "Love God. Pursue God with all your heart." The word "heart" means mind. That means you must study God. I read the Bible through at 15 years old. I was on my third reading. Still read it every year. I read the Bible through now 38 times. Why? I got to know my source. I'm not smart; I'm just reconnected. And you won't read the books, you won't read the Bible, you just kind of just kind of just kind of eat food. You have to know God. Spend time with God. You can't know someone who you're not spending time with. He says, "I'm..." When you do that, you will discover yourself.
Now, watch this. He says, "And you will love your neighbor as yourself." He says, "All the laws are in this one law." That's why I tell you this: The most important message. Let's take a look at this. What does He mean by that? This is interesting. He says, "Love God." That means to really focus on God and understand His qualities and character. Why? If you learn God's qualities and character, you'll discover your own qualities and character. "As yourself" means to the same degree or measure.
Now, He says, "You can love your neighbor only to the same degree you love yourself." So, loving yourself protects me. Therefore, write this down: Loving God should result in self-love. That's what He's saying. And when you have love for yourself, then you can only love people to the same degree you love yourself. So, loving you is more important than loving me. Me say it loud. This is heavy stuff.
The next time someone tells you they love you, don't feel excited about that. That's right. Don't say, "I love you too." Wrong answer. Are you? I'm begging you to get this. Your response should be, "Thank you. But do you love you?" Because you can only love me to the same degree you love yourself. So, yourself is more important than myself. People lie all the time. "I love you." "You don't love me." Why? "You don't love yourself." You are in danger if people don't love themselves around you. This is why marriages don't work. People don't love themselves, and they go into marriage to try and find someone who can love them because they want to feel worthy. They're looking for worth, self-worth, and they ain't got self-worth. So, they need other worth. So, they go to someone to tell them, "Please give me worth. Tell me how good I am. Be with me. Tell me good things about me because I don't believe those things about me myself." So, tell me them about me, and I live on other people's worth.
The problem with that is, if I control your worth, I could take it back anytime I'm ready, and you become worthless. That's right. And that's why folks fall apart when people leave them because they were living on those people's worth.
Self-love, here has something important. The seven keys to self-love. Write this down. Very important. Teach your kids this too. Number one: Self-love is a result of self-discovery. Number two: Self-love is a result of self-source. Number three: Self-love is a result of self-worth. Number four: Self-love is a result of self-esteem. Number five: Self-love is a result of self-concept. Number six: Self-love is a result of self-identity. Who do you identify with as your source? Number seven: Self-love is a result of self-value. How do you value yourself? How much value do you think you are? Depends on where you came from. If you discover where you came from, you also discover your value. So, you must transform your source to the original, otherwise, you'll always be a victim of other people's opinions.
Self-love is the key to loving everybody else. So, self-love is the source of true singleness. Self-love means you are so complete in yourself, you don't need anything from no one else to give you value. So, you are whole. Put another way, if you ain't, if you don't have self-worth and you come to me to give yourself to me at the altar, you give me something that is worth less. Oh boy, that goes over too well. Are you all listening to me? This stuff is too deep. You see? Okay, put it another way. If you're nobody and you find somebody and give your body to somebody, you give your body, you give nobody to somebody. I'm trying to explain this. If you think you ain't nothing and you meet someone who ain't nothing, but you all got married, nobody got married, nothing got married. If you're worthless and you come to me and give yourself to me as a spouse, I got nothing. Must we keep doing every Saturday and Sunday? I see them all the time, taking pictures. Are you with me? Yeah.
Let me do one more demonstration because, you know, this might be helpful. No, stay there. Stay there. Stay there. Let me do one more demonstration. This, this will be helpful. Uh, okay. Hold that for me. I want to show you exactly what we've been doing. See? All right. Y'all, please watch carefully now. Okay, don't worry. I know what I do. I'm a scientist. All right. Now, this is you, Mary Sue, or Jenny. May sound like my bank that folded up, anyhow. And this is Cedric from Alagga. All right. So, this is Jenny May and Cedric. Me. Now, Jenny May says, "Boy, I'm looking for my second half because I'm only half." See? That's why I feel so empty and lonely because I'm looking for my better half. So, she meets Cedric. Cedric says, "I finally found my other half too." Because they bought them half for people, 50/50 marriage. So, Jenny says, "Woo, I found a man to fulfill my dreams." And Cedric said, "Yippee, I found a woman to fill my dreams. I'm going to be happy the rest of my life." So, she said, "Now, fill me up, boy." So, he fills her up. Keep the camera close. All right. Now, she's happy, happy in the marriage. Cedric, mad, angry. So, he said, "Woman, give me back myself." So, now she's half empty. He said, "When you're supposed to fulfill me?" So, now Cedric's happy, happy, happy. Hell in the family after 35 years. "Give me back, but give me back myself, girl. Give me back myself. Give me my message. Give me my message." "What's wrong with you, boy? Give me my message." That's called marriage right there. Say, "Marriage." It's marriage. Clap, man. You know you're guilty. Hold this. I need some water. Oh, that's all right. That's all right. That's all right. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. I got holy water here. This holy water. Okay.
So, there's Cedric and this Jenny May. They meet again, but they've been through Dr. Monroe's seminar. They read all the books. They're on the table. They're all sorted out. And now they are whole. Jenny doesn't need anyone to tell her anything to make her feel good about herself. She's complete. She doesn't need anyone to love her to feel love. She loves herself. Come on, somebody. She's free from other people's suggestions or opinions. And Cedric doesn't need nobody. Now, when they meet, guess what? They don't need nothing from each other. So, whatever she gives him, it's not because she needs something; it's just overflow, baby. Come on, give God a big praise. Thank you very much. That's our problem. We're moving around high for people looking for the other half, and we are nothing but trouble looking for something to happen. Just trouble. "You don't make me happy." Well, that's a problem. You're supposed to come happy. Oh, dear.
Look at John chapter 4. 1 John 4, real quick. Give a couple of things to write down. John chapter... Paul says these words. This is good stuff. Verse 7: "Dear friend, let us love one another, for love comes from our source, God. Anyone who loves has been born out of God and knows God. Whoever does not love doesn't even know their source, God, because God is the stuff." Look at verse 11: "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." Why? "No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God lives in us, and His love is made complete or mature in us." Why? "It is from us."
Look at this next verse. Powerful stuff. 1 John 4:16: "Read: God is love. Whoever lives..." Come on, out loud. "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." Look at verse 18: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." You know why people are afraid to trust people? Oh boy. "I get hurt once. I ain't trusting no man." You know what your problem is? Self-hatred. "Ain't nothing wrong with the men. Women broke my heart. I ain't no more women. I can just use some and lose." You are sick, brother. You have self-hatred. So, "Good, my heart got broken once. I ain't giving to nobody else." You will die miserably because you were not born to be alone. And I'm talking about relationships with people, not necessarily marriage. You've got to trust people and love people. Earn trust through relationship development. Amen.
Perfect love has no fear. Let me tell you why. If I don't need you to love me so I could love me, then if you don't love me, I still love me. So, when I come to you, I love me before I meet you. So, you keep your love for me. I still love myself. So, therefore, my love for me protects me from your holding back your love for me. So, I don't need to be worried about whether you love me or don't love me or love me. So, when I come to you, I ain't afraid to love you because I don't need you to love me for me to love me. Did you get that? By the CD? Did anyone care what I'm talking about? Yeah.
If I come to you with $100, and you don't give me $100, I walk away with $100. But if I come to you with $50, and I say, "Give me $50, make up a $100," and then you decide later on, "I can take back my $50." I'm back to $50. I lost. Loving yourself protects you from other people using you. Loving yourself protects you from being manipulated by other people. The hurts in this church, there are a lot of hurts in this church. People hurting in marriages, in private lives, in their relationships. Some of them got bitterness from ex-husbands, white ex-wives. I mean, just bad. Why are they struggling with this stuff of losing something? And God sent His word to tell you, "In My Kingdom, the whole culture is love, and it begins with loving yourself." And you're not afraid to love people when you love yourself.
If you disappoint me, I still happy, man. Why? I didn't expect you to appoint me to be happy. So, you're disappointing me doesn't make me sad. Anybody with me? When I come into your life, I'm an asset, not a deficit. So, when you leave me, I'm still an asset to myself. I like what Jesus said. Jesus said, "If you take your pearls to give to someone, and they can't appreciate it," He said, "Don't get mad at them. Go to the next person. Give them your pearls. Don't give your pearls before a swine." The point He's making is that hogs can't appreciate diamonds. Oh, come on, say Amen, somebody. In other words, just tell them, "Oh, excuse me. You don't appreciate good things," and then you move on. He said, "When you come to a man's house, and you knock on it, he opens the door. He said he lets you in. He said, 'Stay there. Put your blessing.'" You go to another house, they don't accept you. He said, "Don't get mad." He said, "Just shake the dust off and just keep on walking."
Some of y'all got the dust on your foot 10 years later. "He hurt me. He hurt me." D-shake the thing off. Come on, scream Hallelujah. Love yourself. Oh, I feel like running. Shake. Tell your neighbor, "Shake it off." Say it loud: "Shake the thing off." In other words, it's been 10 years ago, woman. Shake the thing off. Some of your dust is so old and making you look old. Just shake the dust off. I just say that old fool didn't know good things when he saw it. Shake it off. Prop one more time. Get the diamond out. Praise God. Love yourself. I tell my wife, I kid her, I say, "Honey, you know, you'll be a fool if you leave me now." Though he said, "You'll be a fool too." I said, "I guess you better stay together then." 30 years of marriage, getting sweeter and sweeter. Why? We are assets to each other. She's not a burden, and I'm a wing. Love yourself.
Write this down. Very important point. I love this. John 4:19: "Read loud: We love because He first loved us." If, if anyone says, "I love the bottle, but yet hates the glass," am I right? He is what? A liar. Let me tell you something. We can leave here in a few minutes. Some of y'all are going to actually walk past the glass and the glass is the bottle. Ignore people going outside. Don't even speak to them. Just walk right past. He says, "Look, if you say, 'I love you, Lord,' and you walk past me in the hall," He says, "you are a liar." You tell me all the good things. "You know, great is our God. He is a wonderful God." And God said, "You've been ignoring me all during the meeting. I've been sitting next to you, behind you. You say, 'Good morning' to me." You're lying. You're lying. That's a hard. He says, "You are a liar." That's a hard word. You're a liar. Imagine sanctified, Holy Ghost-filled liars because we don't connect the bottle to the glass. You're the image of God.
Paul says, "Husbands, love your wives." And then he says, "Cherish them." Then, then he said this way: "For no man ever hateth his own body." In other words, you slap your wife, you're slapping your own self. But worse than that, you're slapping God. Have you thought that way? You meet somebody in the hallway, they need a ride home from this meeting, and you've got a car, and it's empty. And God says, "Can you sometimes..." God just sends people to check you. "You love me, you know?" "Just send people in your life." They said, "I give my hotel, but I ain't got no ride, sir." "I'm busy. I got to go eat my chicken." God says, "You know something? Chicken is more important than My image." Oh, this happens every week. You don't know who you're sitting next to. You cannot tell God you love Him and hate people. That's a contradiction. It's a lie. Lift your hand and say, "Lord, forgive me, please."
Look at verse 21. No, let's read the next part. "For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot say he loves God whom he cannot see." And He has given us this what? Command. Everybody say, "Law." See, He's making a law. He says, "Since y'all can't get it naturally, I'm going to make it law so you can create the culture of it. I want to give you a culture of..."
love I want to develop a love for each other where you have to do it until it becomes natural. Love your brother. It's a law. You can't be in the kingdom of God and obey the law of the country. So the basics, human needs. I want to tell you something important. Write this list down. This is so important, please. The law of love in the kingdom of God is a law. Why does God even make it a law? Because humans have basic needs that are inherent in their nature. You see, water is made up of some natural things like H2O. Hydrogen, two parts oxygen. That's what water is. Water is hydrogen, two parts oxygen. That's what makes up water. So water consists of hydrogen and oxygen together. Now, for for water to exist, look at me, please. You need hydrogen and oxygen together. Can I say it again? Water consists of two things, hydrogen and oxygen, and if you separate them, it ceases to be water. So what makes water maintain its water nature? It must keep hydrogen and oxygen together. Human beings are made out of the very nature, spirit of God. So whatever keeps God together, we need this thing to keep us together. So let me give you a couple of things. First of all, you need to be valued. Every human needs this. Number two, every human needs to be respected. Number three, all humans need to be affirmed. I'm giving you a list to save your life. Write it down. Number four, every human needs to be touched. These are human needs. Number five, every human needs to be given attention. Number six, all humans need to be accepted. Number seven, all human beings need to feel important. Number eight, all human beings need to be appreciated. Number nine, every human in the world needs to be recognized. Number 10, all humans need to be connected. They need to feel a part of something. And number 11, all humans need to be included. If folks don't feel included, they leave you. You're not meeting their needs. And number 12, all humans need to feel secure. When folks feel insecure, they scatter. This is very important. That's why God required that sex in marriage produces a child because the child needs all those things. Babies are born within the context of love. Look at that list, and that's your problem right there. These are not wants, these are needs. A need is that which is required for function. Write it down. In other words, if anyone lacks any one of these, they start malfunctioning. So if a wife feels she's not valued by her husband, she starts malfunctioning. If she doesn't feel accepted by her husband, or vice versa, they begin to malfunction. If a woman feels that she is not touched, husband, don't touch her no more, she begins to feel dysfunctional. If a husband or a wife feels that they're not getting attention, they begin to malfunction. If you accept your mother more than your wife, you can have yourself a problem. How about this one? If your wife don't feel important anymore, you used to call her every day, three times a day, now you call once a week. You told your lover every night, talk for 10 hours on the phone, and now you tell you love her once every year at Valentine's Day. What's your problem? You got that woman starving. That's why the guy at the office, tell her once, and then she got in trouble. She's starving. Seeing with the man. All males need that list too. If you don't appreciate your husband, somebody else will. And these are not wants, these are needs. Every hurt in this room is on that list. Please get this CD or DVD because the DVD got the list on it. You can take it home, watch the list, look at that list again, and think about your hurt. I'm you heard that the one that you you covering up even from your spouse is on that list. Imagine a husband going away and doesn't tell his wife until he's away. He calls back from Miami and one had to go away. Look at that list. She's not connected. She's not included in his plans. She doesn't feel he recognizes how important she is. He totally ignores and doesn't appreciate that she should know it. She's not important enough to tell her. He's destroying his marriage. And here has a woman who goes out for hours and husband don't know where she is. And now at the end of the day, he says, honey, where you been? None of your business. What are you talking about? None of my business. Look at that list. You just destroyed the man. A need is like fuel in a car. If you don't have gasoline in the car, malfunctions. How you doing with loving people? You know today, they sister Claud didn't recognize some people. Look at that list, and you may think, why are we wasting all this time? You don't understand. Humans need that. When was the last time you gave your wife a plaque for being a good wife? How about giving your husband a trophy, man of the year? I mean, that may sound funny to you, but we just don't do it, and humans need it. Women are starving for attention from the people in their lives, starving. They even got it worse because women, they function on affection. Affection is that touch thing. See, and touch doesn't mean always sex. Touch means, you know, you you touch them, but sending them a gift without even for for no reason at all. You're connecting. All that list is what you call love. If someone someone asks you how do you love, pull that list out all the time. Matter of fact, take this list, type it up, put on your refrigerator, put it on the glass where you fix your face in the morning or comb your hair or shave, and remember, memorize the list. Put it in your pocket every day. Keep studying the list. You want to get the list. And this this goes for all humans. When you go to work, start working the list. Talk to your secretary. Hi, how you doing? Fine. How's your children? Why you now getting into respecting her beyond being a secretary? She has a family. Or your kids? Oh, Tommy is sick. I'm sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do to help Tommy? Now you're connecting. So well, you know, his surgery is costing $3,000 and we only got for 2,000. Okay, well, I'll see what I can do to help you out. Now we're talking about dealing with including her in the plans beyond the office. She'll be with you for 20 years. Would you say you walk right past here, right past her, go to your office, bam, and she goes, I guess I wasn't here. No respect, no affirmation. Affirmation is important. My when my wife cooks, I tell her all the time, boy, that was the best meal you ever cooked in your life. All the time. I kiss her. Thank you for cooking today. Why you didn't have two? I'm affirming that you don't take it for granted after 30 years that she's supposed to cook. She ain't supposed to do nothing. Oh boy, I'm getting out to trouble again. You all right? You're all right. Okay, all right. You're all right. Okay, you're all right. You're all right. See, we that list is a human experience. And notice, sex is not on the list. Clap, clap. People don't need sex to exist, but they need them things on that list to exist. All right, let me wrap this down because you all get too tight. Let's talk about love for a couple seconds and then we go. Agape is a word we all know about. It's the divine word for love in the Bible. But there is also another word in the Bible, Philo, that means friendship love. Now, here's what love is. This this can be your best definition you ever had. Love is defined as a decision to meet the basic needs of another human at every opportunity. That's it. Love your neighbor. You love yourself. He said, look, love is a decision, not a feeling, to meet the needs of another person at every opportunity. In the bathroom, at the soda machine, in the lobby, in the in the car park, in the in the store. When you meet them, you start working the list. Hi, how you doing? Good. How you feeling? Right. How's your family? In other words, you start working on the list right away. You can love everybody if you keep the memory of the list. When someone says, I love you, be suspicious. Check to see if the list is coming out. If you do that list, you never have to say I love you. If I appreciate you all the time, affirm you all the time, touch you all the time, connect with you all the time, respect you all the time, you know, give to you all the time, then you got to I got to say I love you. When you hear a woman say, you haven't told me you love me for a long time, brother, you already in 10 years of trouble. She just finally got the courage to say it. What about marriage? Love and marriage, there's a big difference here. Love in marriage is a commitment and dedication to meet the needs of another person of the opposite sex for the rest of your life. And I want to put opposite sex in there because now we're confused lately. So, you know, we got to put that there specifically. Marriage is between two opposite sexes, and your commitment to do what? Meet the person's needs for the rest of your life. What are their needs? Get the list out. That means I decide, Mela, that I'm going to give you affection, attention, respect, affirmation, connection, support, care. With think about you all the time. You're going to be my focus and dedication. Marriage means I decide to do it to you for the rest of your life. As a single person who is married, I can do it to everybody for the rest of their lives. And that's why marriage is a tough thing. Nothing is worse than being married, trapped in a marriage, and you don't get no respect. Matter of fact, being married could be worse than being unmarried. I'm telling you, it is safer to be unmarried. Paul says, and Paul is right. You see, if you catch hell and you're single, you could always go in the house and cry by yourself. But if you catch hell and you're married, you got to go in the house with that bo who giving you the hell and sleep with them in the same room. Boy, listen, that is a prison. It's better to be miserable by yourself. You understand? You're trapped. And nothing is as lonely as a married person who is not loved. Don't rush into this stuff. Is this good stuff? Okay, so let me just give you a little context here, and uh, next time we're together, we'll we'll talk about this. Next week, Dr. Han is going to be with us. Going to be powerful stuff. Wherever a thing, wherever a thing comes from, it must receive from and give to where it came from. This is very important. It's a complicated sentence, but you got to read it carefully. Wherever something comes from, it must what? Receive and give back to where it came from. That's how God created everything. So where where do plants come from? They came from the soil. So they got to feed on the soil and also give back to the soil. They give back to the soil when they die. They become soil again. They become fertilizer. A fish came from the water. So the fish can actually feed on the water, but when it dies, it gives back to the water and keeps it nutrient-filled for the fish to eat. You came out of God. God is love. So therefore, whatever you are, you need to give and receive from. That's why you need to receive these things from God and give them back to God. You are loved, so you need to be loved because you came out of love. So love needs to be loved in order for love to love, and for love to be sustained, love got to love to live to live. So for for love to be sustained, they got to be give back to love, and love got to give to love, and love got to keep giving love so love can receive love. While I give back to love, so love, love, love. Your problem is you came out of love, so you need love, but you also got to give love back to love. That's why if you don't have no one to love, you won't be fulfilled. You malfunction. And you you don't need to be married to have people to love. Now, here's something, but love, very important statement. For love, love is only complete when the receiver is just like the giver. Please listen to me carefully. I'm going to say it again. Love is only successful and effective and complete when the receiver is exactly like the giver. That's why you cannot really love a dog. Some of you think the dog loves you. That dog is a smart dog. Every time he licks you, get him food. So he licks, he thinks he's loving you. He's licking, he's getting food. Don't fool yourself. You know, love. The Bible says for every sheep, there was a sheep. For every dog, there was a dog. For every cat, there was a cat. But for Adam, there was none suitable for him. He said, well, I don't need nobody. I got my puppy. You listen. You need a woman or a man in your life. Dog ain't no man's best friend. Stop lying, brother. If you got his, I I got my, you know, like, you know, I got my parakeet and my two hamsters, and I got my rabbit, and I got my two dogs. Yeah, you need. You're crazy. You're like Michael Jackson, fall in love with a monkey. You got, hey, you can't do that. Now, Mikey is my friend. Hi, Mikey. I'm there in Arabia. You know, it's amazing. You can't give love to someone that can't give love back to you. Jesus said it again, repeat it. He says, you cannot cast your pearls to swine. You got your pig as a pet, and you buy your pig a $50,000 diamond ring because you love your pig so much. That'd be a muddy diamond all the rest of your life because a diamond cannot be appreciated by the pig. That's why God created you. You know, God created you. This is going to be good. God is love, and God needed someone to love. And the one who receives the love got to be just like the one who gives the love. So God made all these animals, thousands of species, and plants, and birds, and stars. And God said, look, I still ain't got no one to love because none of them is like me. So God said, let me make this one in my own image, just like me, so I can have someone to love. Imagine the motivation for your creation is love. So God didn't decide to love you. He created you to love you. So dying for you was easy. And then he says, now you should love one another like I love you. You should have to make up your mind to love nobody anymore. Anytime you see them, you see the image of God. Oh boy, got to love that person. So let me go start meeting their needs right now. They they need attention, they need recognition, they need appreciation, they need to be touched, they need to be connected. Then they feel included. You see somebody stand off by themselves and you in a group, you should go to them and say, look, come. Why you have a need to be included? That's why they out there. They feel so isolated and no one's coming to them. They they are starving. They are hurt. Was to go to them, say, come, come, come, come, be with us. That's love. That's love reaching out. The greatest stories in Jesus's miracles is the lepers. Lepers were considered as as untouchables. Say, and Christ always went to them. And the first thing the Bible says, he touched. He always touched the leper because the one thing lepers were starving for was touch. No one could touch him in the culture. He would touch them. Said he laid his hands on them. I don't think it was the real healing of of the leprosy going away. If the fact that he touched them, that's like 10 years no family could touch them. And in 10 seconds, this man solved 10 years of problems. Wow. Another human touched me. Can we do that for people? There are folks in this room right now. They look good, dressed up nice. No one appreciates them. They came in here hurting, all kind of confusion in their lives. And God sat you right in front of them, right in back of them to say, look, touch them. So you know something? It's going to be all right. Matter of fact, do it right now. Just touch the place in front of you. Tell them it's going to be all right. Touch people, man. It's going to be all right. It's go you don't know what they going through. It's going to be all right. Whatever you are, you need to give and receive. If you came out of love, you got to give it, and you got to receive it. God is love, and therefore, for you came out of God, you are love, and you need to give it. You need to receive it. You need to give love. You need to receive it. You need to give love. Need to receive it. And if you decide yourself that you ain't, you know, you ain't let nobody touch you no more in your life, you're going to die because you need love, and you need to give love. Christ was never married, but he loved everybody. So what do you do when someone broke your heart? I'm going to close, and this is some folks had this little problem, you know, when someone leaves you, when somebody breaks your heart, you you gave them a lot of stuff, and they they walked out. What do you do when it's all over? Relationships are designed to meet human needs, and your needs are not habits, they are requirements. Sex can be a habit, but not your needs. Relationships are broken when one person withholds meeting your needs. That's what it is. The person stops appreciating you, it breaks a relationship. The person stops respecting you. The person stops touching you. The person stops connecting with you. You begin to feel isolated. You call a broken heart. Some of you know how that feels. They make other people more valuable than you. My goodness. Wow. You see them with somebody else, happy with somebody else. They withhold from you some of the time. These needs are so hard. People do violent things. And therefore, rejection is the worst experience of a human. Rejection is the withholding of meeting those needs. I ain't going to respect you no more. I'm not going to appreciate you anymore. I'm not going to give you attention anymore. I'm not going to connect with you anymore. I'm not going to call you anymore. I'm not going to talk to you anymore. I'm not going to give you any kind of respect. And and that that's that's rejection. It's so hurtful. So I got an answer for you. The answer is fall in love with yourself. Fall in love with yourself. Get all your needs met between you and God first. If somebody withholds respect from me, I respect myself. If somebody withholds appreciation from me, I appreciate myself. If somebody withholds recognition from me, I recognize myself. I'm so important. So when you fall in love with yourself, you protect yourself from other people playing games with your heart. You know what God did? He born you alone. Ain't that amazing? He didn't born you with nobody. You came out all by yourself. Boom. That means that you came here by yourself. When you give appreciation to someone, it should be because you got so much of it. You don't recognize people so they can recognize you. You recognize yourself as important. So therefore, you recognize them. Now, if they withhold recognition from you, you still got your own recognition. Am I making sense? The the way you protect yourself is self-love because ain't nobody around you for sure. You know, ain't no one for sure. Hello. Some of you know what I'm talking about. You give your whole life to somebody, they mess with your life, and all of a sudden, you realize you're out there by yourself. So what you do is, you you have to fall in love with yourself. Love yourself first. Then you love your neighbor as much as you love yourself. And if your neighbor goes squirrely, you still love yourself. Final point. Rejection cannot devalue you if you love yourself. If I was 100% before you met me, and you came and you bought 50%, I'm 150 now. If you took your 50% back, I'm still 100%. So what I got to make sure is that when I come to you, I am 100% before I come to you, just in case you take your 50%. Some people are so lacking self-love that other people know it, and they play with you. I'll leave you. You know, and they know what you can say, please don't leave me. They're playing with you. The next time they say they're leaving, tell them, so what time you want to leave? Let me call the taxi. That's what you need to say. You didn't bring me into this world, and you don't maintain my life. In Him I live and move. Lord have mercy. And so when they come to your life, you're telling her, let's start off right. Okay, let me let me this right now, baby. Okay, listen to me, baby. Okay, see, you are fortunate to have this kind of material in your cycle, baby. Now, let's get it right. Okay, I came to add to you, not subtract. Now, if you want to divide or subtract, proceed. But I tell you what, you wouldn't touch the value of this because this had value before you came, and it got value when you leave. So decide whether you appreciate this, take advantage of this, get blessed by this, or go off and lose this. Come on, give God a hand. Close your Bibles. Praise God. Thank you once again for listening to this message, as we hope that it has been a blessing to you. Our goal is to show you new paths and opportunities so that you can discover your purpose. It is your love, support, and partnership that makes Monroe Global possible. Please visit us online at www.mrglobal.com for more product partnership or to join us at one of our live events around the world.