How can I keep from overlooking the needs of the ones I love?

Loving Like Jesus in a broken world, Part 2

by Jason Hight

Introduction: Open the eyes of your Heart, who am I overlooking?

1 Corinthians 10:24 (NCV) - Do not look out only for yourselves. Look out for the good of others also.

Philippians 2:4 (NCV) - Do not be interested only in your own life, but be interested in the lives of others.

Heart Check #1 – Stop: What is the speed of your heart? Do I need to slow my pace?

Mark 7:17 (NLT) - Then Jesus went into a house to get away from the crowd, …

Heart Check #2 – Rewind: How stressed is your heart? Who are you helping and who are you hurting?

Luke 21:34 (NIV) - ³⁴ “Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you suddenly like a trap.

Psalm 34:18 (MSG) - If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there; if you’re kicked in the gut, he’ll help you catch your breath.

Heart Check # 3 – Contemplate: Based on the answers above, do I need to reset, renew, or repent?

Psalm 139:23-24 (ESV) - ²³ Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! ²⁴ And see if there be any grievous way in me,and lead me in the way everlasting!

Conclusion: The Heartbeat of Jesus

          First: Pray for your own strength.

John 17:1-5 (ESV) - When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, ² since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³ And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴ I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

          Second: Pray for those to whom you are directly responsible.

John 17:6-19 (ESV) - ⁶ “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. ⁸ For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹ I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. ¹¹ And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. ¹² While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³ But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. ¹⁴ I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

          Third: Pray for those who will one day believe.

John 17:20-26 (ESV) - ²⁰ “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”