Growing a Heart of Love:
Fill Up Your Love Tank!!!!
Part One
January 18, 2026
Scripture: I John 4:7-12
Dr. Larry Stephens from the book, Please Let Me Know You, God, tells the following story. Carrie stood in the bleachers of the junior high gymnasium, a camcorder in her hand, her right eye glued to the eyepiece, the camera lens focused on the hardwood cart below. Her 13-year-old son, Jeremy, had just been fouled by a player on the opposing team, so he was taking his place in the center of the key. As she peered at the black and white image of her son in the viewfinder, Carrie grinned tensely. “Okay, Jer, it’s one and one, Jer! Don’t miss the first one!” Jeremy could hear his mother urging him to make the shot. He eyed the hoop. His hands shook as they clutched the ball. He sucked in a deep breath, held it, and launched the shot. The ball sailed toward the hoop. From the stands, Carrie’s camcorder followed the flight. The ball thudded against the backboard and rolled once around the rim and out. No point. Carrie took the camcorder away from her face. She yelled, “Jeremy! Jeremy Mark Bishop, what is the matter with you.” On the court Jeremy turned, white faced, and saw his mother stalking down the bleachers, oblivious to the shocked faces of parents and students who watched the game…Jeremy played: legs pumping, lungs straining, a lump of shame in his throat bigger than any basketball. Jeremy moved up and down the court with his teammates. At the same time, his mother stormed up and down the sidelines screaming, “Jeremy, that was so stupid! That was the easiest point you ever could have made. How could you blow an easy shot like that?” On the way home, Jeremy looked out the passenger side window. Little was said.
Carrie had a nearly empty love tank and didn’t even know it. Carrie grew up in an abusive family. To survive, she became a perfectionist. She became driven to live through the achievements of her son because she had long felt her life was worthless. Yet, attempting to build a perfect life for her son, she was destroying him emotionally. Carrie had a problem of being unconsciously incompetent.
Jesus’ disciples at various times were unconsciously incompetent. Their love tank was only partially full or running on the wrong fuel. For example, they were not aware that anything was wrong when they rebuked parents and their children in bothering Jesus. Yet, Jesus was indignant and said, “Let the little children come to me.” Jesus’ disciple argued who would be greatest in heaven. Jesus had to correct their way of thinking.
Often, we have a severe problem of being unconsciously incompetent. We don’t even realize that what we are doing is harmful. It was not until Carrie heard herself on the video that she realized her harmful, hurtful, sinful behavior. Listen, there is a natural sinful tendency to try to fulfill our identity, our desires, our love tank with the things of this world.
The Lord wants each of us to have a full love tank. He wants to transform us into his character, into a loving person (Romans 8:28, 29). We need God’s help to transform us and help us grow into His character. We need to have our love tank filled so we can overflow with love to others. As a church, we are called to love one another! As a church congregation, we need others to help us fill our love tank and each of us are to help fill the love tank of others. Parents, grandparents, it is important/critical to fill up the love tank of your children.
One of my goals as a parent, especially when Aaron was younger, was to fill his love tank! So, if I was going to do that, then I needed to have my love tank full or somewhat full.
So today, I want to give you a short quiz to help you evaluate your love tank level. Then note several key principles in having your love tank filled up! Then next week note several other critical principles to fill up our love tank.
Now it can be difficult to determine how full or empty the tank is. It is not like reading the fuel tank gauge in a car. One of the reasons it is difficult is because we bring our own ideas and conceptions of what love is. Our temperament and our upbringing are also crucial factors in how we view love.
So, how would you rate yourself with 10 being a full love tank and 1 being empty?
Are you full of patience or empty with impatience?
Are you full of kindness or empty with unkindness?
Do your words come across as being critical, bitter, angry or are your words encouraging,
understanding, loving?
Are you humble, considering others better than yourself, or do you have pride thinking you are
a little better?
Are you sacrificial or selfish?
Are you slow to anger or quick to anger?
Are you forgiving or are you bitter?
Do you speak the truth in love, or do you withdraw or blow up?
Are you full of joy or are you empty with fear, bitterness, worry, or stress?
Now one simple way to evaluate how full or empty your love tank is to evaluate every word you speak. As Jesus said in Matthew 12:34-37, For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. 35 A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. 36 But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. 37 For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.
So how were your words this past week?
Here is the first principle in filling up your love tank! GET A NEW HEART!!!! Filling your love tank starts by receiving and understanding God’s amazing love and grace! Be filled with His love!
Ezekiel 36:26 says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
I John 4:7-10 says, Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God (born of His Spirit) and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Love comes from God!!! If one is to have their love tank truly filled, then it begins with God and being born of God, His Spirit.
Jesus said to Nicodemus, No one can see the kingdom of God unless is born again (John 3:3-8). One must receive a new spiritual heart by wholeheartedly receiving Jesus and having Him as the Lord of your life. One then is born again of His Holy Spirit.
In Acts 2, we read that Peter was preaching about the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. After he finished, in verse 37, we read the people were cut to the heart. They were stabbed by the truth. The truth penetrated their hard-heartedness.
So, the people asked the apostles, “What shall we do?” The Apostle Peter replied, Repent and be baptized, everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). With many words he warned them and pleaded with them (v.40). Peter wanted them to understand. Those who accepted his message were baptized and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship (Acts 2:41, 42). They received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit opens our eyes and ears, warms our heart, fills our love tank, so we become more relational, tender, expressing true love. With this new heart, a person becomes soft towards God. He/she prays, “Lord, you are the potter, I am the clay. Mold me into your image. Lord, make me like you. Forgive me. Direct my paths. May I do your will, not my will. One who has a responsive heart love to worship, to praise God, to love others, to pray and has a desire to obey His word! (Note John 14:15-24).
In Matthew 13, Jesus tells the Parable of the Sower. He first tells about those who don’t understand the message of the kingdom. He tells about the seed being scattered along the path, where the birds ate it up. They did not understand. Then there were some seeds that fell on rocky ground where it sprang up quickly but did not last because the soil was shallow. They did not understand. Then, there were seeds that fell among the thorns. The seed the falls on the soil among the thorns refers to one who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. They did not understand or take it to heart. Then Jesus says, But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown (Matthew 13:23).
If one is going to fill one’s love tank, then one needs to receive and understand the love of God, the good news of Jesus! It all begins with being reconciled to God through Jesus Christ!
Here is a second principle in filling up your love tank! Take to heart the depth of your sinfulness and God’s amazing love and forgiveness! Be humble! Love with a Christlike love!
I John 4:11, 12, Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
Jesus tells the following story in Luke 7:36-47. Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table. 37When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, 38and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them. 39When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner." 40Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you." "Tell me, teacher," he said. 41"Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. 42Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?" 43Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled." "You have judged correctly," Jesus said. 44Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. 45You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. 46You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. 47Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little."
If you are truly going to love, fill up the love tank, then you need to see the depth of your sinfulness and experience God’s amazing love and forgiveness. Sadly, too many people just blame others and really don’t consider their own faults, weaknesses, and sinfulness. This might be because of various reasons: pride, including spiritual pride, rationalizing selfish desires, compensation for a poor self-image as they can’t accept being wrong, or an emotional/mental issue.
Listen, people need to wake up to their own weaknesses and sinfulness. In the story of Carrie and Jeremy, Carrie realized her mistake after watching the video she had taken. So, the next day, she picked up her son from school. He still sat silent on the way home. When they got home, there was a big hand painted sign, “Jeremy, I’m so sorry, please forgive me. I love you so much, Mom.”
If you recognize the depth of your own sinfulness, then you will deeply appreciate God’s love and grace! His love will motivate you to repent, apologize, forgive, encourage, show kindness, be patient, and speak the truth in love (Note Romans 2:4; Titus 2:11-14; 3:3-8).
Oh, how we need to take to heart Ephesians 2:8, 9. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. (Please note Ephesians 2:1-10).
If one does this, then one can apply Philippians 2:3-5 which states, Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. 5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus (Please note: Philippians 2:1-11). God’s grace/his example should motivate each us to have the mindset of Jesus!
Here is the last principle this morning. Principle 3: Be totally convinced to the core of your being that you matter to Him! Know your identity is in Christ!
In our culture, people will indicate their identity by what they feel, by what others say about them, or some status like your job status, your financial status.
A range of factors such as parenting, culture, education, your temperament, and individual experiences can influence how you view yourself and others.
Since God wants to transform you into a more loving person, to fill your love tank, He wants you to be convinced to the core of your being that you are precious in His sight. God’s word repeatedly states that you matter to him.
For example, Isaiah 43:1, 4 says, “I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by my name; you are mine. You are precious and honored in my sight and I love you.”
1 Peter 2:9 states, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
I John 3:1 states, See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
The phrase “in Christ” occurs about 280 times in the New Testament. What does it meant to be in Christ? If you are in Christ, you should not be empty but filled because in Christ is the fullness of God (Eph 3:19). Believers have “the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe” (Rom 3:22). They “are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24). By Adam all will die, but in Christ all will be made alive (1 Cor 15:22). We have all earned eternal death, but “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 6:23), and there is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ” (Rom 8:1) because “the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death” (Rom 8:2).
You matter more to Him than you could ever dream! My hope is that you will take that to heart!
Let me close with a video clip from the movie, Overcomer. In the movie, Overcomer, one of the central themes is the question, “Who are you?” One needs to consider their true identity to one’s relationship with the Lord. Let’s look.
Overcomer Scene: Who Are You?
