Love Is A Choice - Be Motivated To Motivate By Love

Love Is A Choice

Deuteronomy 6:4-5

4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.[a] 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Mark 12:30-31

30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’[b] There is no commandment greater than these.”

Matthew 22:37-39

37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’[b] 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Be Motivated To Motivate - By Love

Hebrews 10:24-25

24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

Ephesians 1:15-19

Motivation comes through passion which leads to determination. A motivated person operates without fear or reservation

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—

Despite being troubled:

18 while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

The Call to Endurance Hebrews 12:1- 2 Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on whom our faith depends from beginning to end. He did not give up because of the cross! On the contrary, because of the joy that was waiting for him, he thought nothing of the disgrace of dying on the cross, and he is now seated at the right side of God's throne.

Deuteronomy 30:19

19 This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live

Loving means prioritising everything concerning Him and His Kingdom.

Genesis 50:20 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.” 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. 20 Don't you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now - life for many people.

Genesis 50:20 ESV

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

Our passion for God evidences our love for God and confidence in the hope that Christ purchased for you with His blood.

1 Corinthians 2:9

9 However, as it is written:“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”[a]—the things God has prepared for those who love him—10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

Love—The Ethical Test of Divine Sonship

1 John 4:7–12 NRSV

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

III. The Motivation—God’s Love (vv. 9, 10).

A. The visibleness of God’s love (v. 9).

B. The greatness of God’s love (v. 10). The greatness of the divine love is indicated in at least four ways:

1. It is seen in the greatness of the gift which love prompted God to bestow on us: “his only begotten Son” (v. 9).

2. The greatness of the divine love is seen in the purpose of the Son’s mission: “that we might live through him” (v. 9).

3. The greatness of God’s love is brought out by a consideration of the recipients of His love: “he loved us” (v. 10a).

4. The greatness of God’s love is seen in the propitiatory of Christ’s death. God sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (v. 10b).

IV. Love Fulfills Two Functions (v. 12):

A. It is the visible evidence that God dwells in us (v. 12a; cf. John 13:34, 35).

B. When we practice love, His (God’s) love is “perfected in us” (v. 12b).

V. The Obligation (v. 11)

A. The character of the obligation (v. 11).

B. The claim of the obligation (v. 11).

Outlines on the Gospel of John and First John 15. Love and Its Perfection (1 John 4:17–21)

1 John 4:17–21

I. Love’s Perfection in Relation to Self (vv. 17, 18).

A. It causes us to have boldness in the day of judgment (v. 17).

B. It casts out fear (v. 18).

II. Love’s Perfection in Relation to Others (vv. 19–21).

A. The principle of love (v. 19).

B. The profession of love (v. 20).

C. The proof of love (v. 21).

Concluding Prayer:

12 1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.