The Meaning Of Love
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A gravestone once read:
What I kept for myself I no longer have.
What I gave away I now have forever.
This reflects the truth contained in .
But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.
How full is your heavenly bank account? Start filling it today. And take hope. Deposits into your heavenly account are measured not in dollars and cents, but by the amount of faith, sacrifice and love from which they were given. A million dollars from Bill Gates would count far less on heaven’s scales than the meagre small copper coins given by the widow at the temple.
So thank you for your faithfulness. God keeps doing miracles for us as we continue to walk in faith, give, sacrifice and trust Him.
Every step requires faith and courage, but how else would we want to live?
I want to thank everyone who has made a faith promise towards the launch of the day care. To date we have received about $17,500. And we have already begun to use those funds for the preparations.
4 Ways to Give
4 Ways to Give
Introductions
Introductions
Randal, Clarissa and Russel Wilber
Randal, Clarissa and Russel Wilber
SAGU Graduates
Served with Teen Challenge in Oklahoma
Moved to Jackson Hole Wyoming to help plant RidgeLife Church 3 years ago
Josh Evans
Josh Evans
SAGU Grad with his Masters in Counseling
Served 6 years at SAGU as the Missions Travel Coordinator. He sent students to over 100 nations of the world.
Introduction
Introduction
Pride will destroy all that love has built.
Love with restore what pride has destroyed.
“Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the LORD evil is avoided.”
NIV
http://bible.com/111/pro.16.6.niv
It is easy to love that which is within our family circle. It is more difficult is to love that which is outside our family circle.
God does the unthinkable. He loves not just with words, but with actions. And He loves not just those within His family circle- but He drew the circle bigger to include His enemies.
He endeavors with selfless, patient kindness to win the hearts of those who hate Him and curse Him and mock His name. This is good news, for such were all of us until God In His mercy and Kindness won us over with His love from our love of sin.
This week Angela and I took some time to get away as a couple. I highly recommend all married couples make time to get away alone as often as possible. My parents came to watch the girls. If your parents can't come watch your children, I will go ahead and volunteer Pastors Tim and Lori to watch your kids for you if you need to get away. 😬
Finally someone asked, “Is there any gas in it?” They added gas, and magic. It cranked and ran fine.
While we were gone, love was at work in our home. When we came back, it was like an Easter Egg Hunt walking around our house to see all that my parents did. They bought dishes, towels, decorations. Crazy thoughtful stuff. They fixed the girls broken iPad screens. My dad brought me a hunting rifle. I have aspirations of elk hunting.
They gave.
They cleaned our garage. Fixed broken furniture.
They served.
The car could not do what it was intended to do without gas. In the same way, the Church of Jesus Christ cannot fulfill its mission without love.
They honored.
It is frustrating to me that I can be with someone I deem important and be polite and kind. Then I turn around and treat my family rude. What I am showing is that I am not highly valuing my fam.
They loved and put their love in action.
Love is the most powerful force in this world. It is the character of God in action.
Over the next few weeks, I want to explore with you the meaning of the word Love from scripture.
As a Bible College Student at SAGU, I attended chapel 5 times a week for 4 years. In those 4 years, I can only remember one sermon dedicated to the topic of love. There may have been more I am forgetting, but I think my point is over all valid. In the Christian experience, we have a tendency to take love for granted, when it should be the core focus of all we say and do.
If we are not careful we can major on the minors and miss what is major all together.
A Church without love is just a misguided social club.
A marriage without love is just a legal contract between two miserable people.
Music without love is just noise.
Friendships without love are just frustrations waiting to happen.
Love is the most important thing in all the world. In fact, love is the most important thing in all of creation. Love is God’s character expressed through people. God describes himself as love in 1 John when He declares: God is love.
The Bible never says Love is God, though many in our world would love to see that- defining love and thereby defining God. The Bible says God is Love.
Why? Love flows out of the character of God. He is the spring, the source of all love. When we act in love, we act like God. When we act against love, we act against God.
A few weeks ago I visited the San Luis Valley. It is said to be the largest high valley in the world, stretching 50 miles wide and 100 miles long. It is mostly desert terrain.
Beneath the San Luis Valley is a vast underground lake. The valley is full of artesian wells, because all you have to do is dig a whole deep enough and water begins to spring up. So if you stick a pipe in the ground, water will flow.
We passed field after field where farmers drilled artesian wells and then let them flow out across their land. The result was that desert ground sprang to life.
God’s love is like that. It is vast and unseen until we tap into it. But when it begins to flow, it brings life everywhere it goes. God wants each of us to be artesian wells, overflowing with His love. And if we will let God’s love flow through us, God will use us to bring life and hope everywhere we go.
The greatest definition of love in all of the world is contained in . Even hostile non-Christians will usually acknowledge the beauty of this passage. It has been read at countless weddings. It is the greatest recipe for a successful marriage and successful relationships. And our study over the next few weeks will center around , so let’s read it together now.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
As we read over , we come to understand:
Success without love is empty.
Ministry without love is pointless.
Sacrifice without love is worthless.
Spiritual gifts are temporary. Love is eternal.
Illustration: Life without love is a like an engagement ring without the diamond. It may look good, but the key element is missing.
Doing God’s work without love is not doing God’s work. Many will do ministry from other motives, which in the end according to makes their efforts futile.
Love values others. Pride values self. Love sacrifices self for others. Pride sacrifices others for self.
This is most clearly seen when we compare God to satan.
God is willing to sacrifice Himself to rescue us from the punishment we deserve.
Satan is willing to sacrifice us to exalt himself.
Pride can never be wrong. Love would rather be wronged than risk losing others.
Pride
This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.
Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.
We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence
whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God
and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
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.
We love because he first loved us.
If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
The New Bible Dictionary, Third Edition a. Etymology
Fundamentally it is an inner force (Dt. 6:5, ‘might’) which impels to performing the action which gives pleasure (Pr. 20:13), obtaining the object which awakens desire (Gn. 27:4), or in the case of persons to self-sacrifice for the good of the loved one (Lv. 19:18, 34), and unswerving loyalty (1 Sa. 20:17–42).
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!
As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.”
What is the opposite of love?
What is the opposite of love?
God’s love is willing to suffer.
God’s love is willing to suffer.
God’s love is willing to suffer.
God’s love is willing to suffer.
Hosea
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.
But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images.
It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them.
I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.
My people are determined to turn from me. Even if they call to the Most High, he will by no means exalt them.
“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me; all my compassion is aroused.
I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man— the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath.
Hosea 11:
The New Bible Dictionary, Third Edition b. God’s Love for Men
This love is spontaneous, not evoked by any intrinsic worth in its object, but rather creating that worth
Missionary to China: a labourer was burned. Someone noticed her limping after a skin graft surgery to save the labourer. It was discovered that she had taken the graft of skin from her own leg to save his life.
What is the opposite of love?
Hatred or Indifference?
Hatred: animosity towards other that produces ill will
Indifference wants neither good, nor ill for the other person. It simply does not value the person. Love cannot be indifferent because it so highly values the other person. Indifference affords no value to the other person.
Indifference
Pride: valuing self so much that we value others so little leading to indifference.
Pride
So which is the opposite.
Perhaps both. The two seem to go hand in hand.
Hatred wants ill for the person.
Pride values itself to the exclusion of others producing indifference. People are objectified. Their value is reduced to the mere benefit they provide us. When we have allowed pride to strip away the intrinsic value in other people, it is easy to be indifferent to them.
Love values others. Pride values self.
Love sacrifices self for others. Pride sacrifices others for self.
Love values others. Pride values self. Love sacrifices self for others. Pride sacrifices others for self.
This is most clearly seen when we compare God to satan.
It is easy to want ill for others when we do not value them.
Satan is willing to sacrifice us to exalt himself.
God is willing to sacrifice Himself to rescue us from the punishment we deserve.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”
Pride can never be wrong. Love would rather be wronged than risk losing others.
Pride can never be wrong. Love would rather be wronged than risk losing others.
Pride will destroy all that love has built.
Love will restore what pride has destroyed.
Perhaps the ultimate expression of divine love is recorded in . It becomes the model of what love should be.
presents the key components of love
Key Components of Love:
Highly valuing the other person
Wanting what is best for the other person
Willingness to sacrifice for the benefit of the other person
Intention to honor and celebrate the other person
Perhaps the ultimate expression of divine love is recorded in .
Highly valuing the other person:
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
God so loved the world
God so loved the world. This verse does not say the world was lovable, it says God loved.
This value is derived from the Character of the one giving the love
Love values other people.
Love values other people.
The New Bible Dictionary, Third Edition b. God’s Love for Men
This love is spontaneous, not evoked by any intrinsic worth in its object, but rather creating that worth
It is completely independent from any benefit the recipient might render to the one giving the love. Love values the person, not any benefit that may be derived from the person.
It is frustrating to me that I can be with someone I deem important and be polite and kind. Then I turn around and treat my family rude. What I am showing is that I am not highly valuing my family.
It is frustrating to me that I can be with someone I deem important and be polite and kind. Then I turn around and treat my family rude. What I am showing is that I am not highly valuing my fam.
Does this mean that I don’t love my family? Not necessarily. but it does mean that in those times that I act this way I am not acting in love towards them.
Wanting what is best for the other person
Should not perish: God does not want people to perish.
Love wants what is best for the other person. Its desire is not self centered, but other centered.
Willingness to sacrifice for the benefit of the other person
He gave His one and only Son
Love wants what is best another person so much that it is willing to sacrifice to obtain what is best for someone else.
Intention to honor and celebrate the value of the other person
The Father threw a feast to celebrate the homecoming of the prodigal son
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.
For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
From a worldly standpoint, the son returned much less valuable than he departed. But from the Father’s perspective, the son was what was valuable, more than the treasure he squandered.
Missionary Dr. Chestnut
Missionary Dr. Chestnut
By Philip Schroeder
Published 12:04 am, Thursday, September 22, 201
Published 12:04 am, Thursday, September 22, 201
“Dr. Eleanor Chestnut was appointed a missionary in 1894 from Chicago. She received her medical and theological education in that city. She was head of the Women's Hospital in Lienchow and had charge of the medical work at other stations.”
“HongKong – Five American missionaries have, it is believed, been murdered at Lienchow ... The victims are said to be Dr. Eleanor Chestnut, Mrs. E.C. Machle and child, and the Rev. and Mrs. John Rogers Peale. They were all under the direction of the Foreign Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church ...
“Dr. Eleanor Chestnut was appointed a missionary in 1894 from Chicago. She received her medical and theological education in that city. She was head of the Women's Hospital in Lienchow and had charge of the medical work at other stations.”
News Channel
News Channel
Chestnut, a medical missionary, sailed to China in 1894 and took over a new women's hospital that was still under construction. She traveled to small villages on horseback to hold clinics.
The missionaries barely escaped but the mob found them and five Americans, including Chestnut, Machle's wife and 10-year-old daughter, were murdered.
Before she died, Chestnut, performing surgery in her bathroom, had to amputate the leg of a local Chinese manual laborer. A few days later, someone noticed that Dr. Chestnut was limping.
A nurse present at the surgery revealed what had happened: There were complications in the surgery and the patient needed a skin graft. Chestnut gave herself a local anesthetic and removed skin from her own leg.
She literally gave her own skin for this poor Chinese worker. Why? Love. She valued his life above her own. Not for what he would do for her, but because God loved him and valued him.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
After Chestnut's 11 years of faithful service, another missionary, Dr. E.C. Machle, had an argument with Buddhist priests over a religious structure placed on hospital property. Although Machle resolved his conflict with the Buddhist priests, some locals burned the hospital to the ground.
The missionaries barely escaped but the mob found them and five Americans, including Chestnut, Machle's wife and 10-year-old daughter, were murdered.
“HongKong – Five American missionaries have, it is believed, been murdered at Lienchow ... The victims are said to be Dr. Eleanor Chestnut, Mrs. E.C. Machle and child, and the Rev. and Mrs. John Rogers Peale. They were all under the direction of the Foreign Mission Board of the Presbyterian Church ...
Chestnut, and the other missionaries with, literally gave their lives to bring healing and the hope of the Gospel to the people of China.
Why?
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
Why do we follow Jesus? Because He loves us. And that means He wants what is best for us. He knows what is best for us. He alone has the power to do what is best for us. And we can be sure of this because we see what He already did for us- He died on the cross, spilling His blood, laying down His life to rescue us from our sins.
Jesus demonstrated that you cannot love without:
You cannot love without:
Honoring
Serving
Giving
Honoring
Dennis Casanova writes:
Dennis Casanova writes:
Love suffers long -
Love suffers long -
It will endure . It is not quick to anger. It puts up with the inadequacies of others stoically. It can endure evil and provocation. It endures with many slights and neglects from the person it loves and has patience to await the eventual good that it believes shall eventually prevail in others thru faith in God’s ability to change them. It has self-restraint. In our current day of domestic violence, sexual unfaithfulness and broken relationships it is an important aspect of true love and one against which many of us will surely be tested, for in it we see that love can and must be able to suffer the pain of betrayal without ceasing to truly care for and continue to love those who have betrayed us, wronged us, or who simply do not accept or understand what true love is.
Love values us even when we are broken.
Love values us even when we are wrong.
Love values us even when we are mean.
Love values us even when we are grouchy.
Love values us even when we are poor, lost, confused.
Love seeks nothing from us. Love expects nothing but us.
Love. Your value today is set by love. Not by a world looking to get something from you. Not by a spouse that rejected you. Not by an illness that has de-habilitated you. Not by abuse that has wounded you. Not by a report card, nor the car you drive, nor the clothes you wear.
Love has set your value. And love set your value at priceless. And then love gave all for you at the cross.
Love will restore what pride has destroyed.
“Through love and faithfulness sin is atoned for; through the fear of the LORD evil is avoided.”
NIV
http://bible.com/111/pro.16.6.niv
It is easy to love that which is within our family circle. It is more difficult is to love that which is outside our family circle.
God does the unthinkable. He loves not just with words, but with actions. And He loves not just those within His family circle- but He drew the circle bigger to include His enemies.
He endeavors with selfless, patient kindness to win the hearts of those who hate Him and curse Him and mock His name, so that He can adopt them into His family circle. This is good news, for such were all of us until God In His mercy and Kindness won us over with His love from our love of sin.
Today, in His love, God is inviting you into His family circle. Will you come?