Is this Love...That I'm feeling?
Notes
Transcript
A quick reminder
A quick reminder
I want to break free
I want to break free
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.
I want to break free
I want to break free
For you were called to be free, brothers; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.
Freedom in Christ is not license to do what we want. So many people seem to forget this. It’s why Paul had to say this.
“Everything is permissible,” but not everything is helpful. “Everything is permissible,” but not everything builds up.
Freedom is something that we all want. We want freedom to worship, freedom to choose, freedom to go where we want. A desire a drive a lust for freedom is intrinsic in all of us. It’s one of the things that was exploited at the fall of man. When the serpent tells Eve you wont surely die you will be like God it’s offering something that humanity had not had, if you have the same knowledge that God has then you don’t really need God do you, and if you don’t need God you are free to do as you will being a law to yourself making your own rules as you see fit.
Is this Love...That I'm feeling?
What is hard for most people to understand is freedom is about more than getting to do what I want, when I want, how I want. Which brings us full circle back to this idea of Love being tied tightly to Freedom.
If we really love someone we will keep in mind that while we are free to do many things, sometimes love says stop.
Which brings us to that four letter word, that for one can send their heart and spirits soaring and for another can shatter the heart into a million little pieces.
A four letter word that is abused for personal gain as opposed to being used as a filter for my actions towards others.
Lets read over the things that are supposed to be on the vine of our lives.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.
LOVE
LOVE
So we have to ask what love is. We hear people talk about love languages all the time. What is our love language, how do you show love. What does love mean. Is there such a thing as true love, or love at first sight.
The Greeks had seven words for love
Storge: Familial love
Eros: a physical sexual expression of love
Philia: a deep friendship type of love
Ludus: a playful love
Agape: a love for everyone
Pragma: Longs standing love
Philautia: A love for ones self
So many words for love.
Love depending on the translation used appears anywhere from 310 (KJV) to 551 (NIV) in the bible with a few stops in-between.
I think it’s safe to say no matter what translastion you use God thinks love is a pretty important part of faith. In fact I would argue that Love is to be the foundation of everything that we do.
Learning to Love
Learning to Love
While love is something we all want, there are times that love has to be something we choose as opposed to something we feel. Learning to love well is one of the hardest things we will ever do because humanity is so tied to their feelings, and as we know feelings change. (Sour Patch kids and Peach Nehi or Minute made orange)
“You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?
Step 1 Choose love
Step 1 Choose love
The next step in learning to love is a realization that people WILL MESS UP! It’s not a question of if it’s a question of when, and that question of when can be answered in one word. Lets try this. I’m going to count to three when I do you all are going to ask. When will I mess up when it comes to loving others. 1. 2. 3. (answer) All the time!
God deal with this idea of messing up all the time when it comes to loving each other and he does so in 1 Peter.
Above all, maintain an intense love for each other, since love covers a multitude of sins.
Step 2 Forgive always
Step 2 Forgive always
When we mess up one of the hardest things to do is to love ourselves.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.
“The second is: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”
Mark 12:3-=3
We like to focus on the whole love the Lord your god, and Love your neighbor part of those verses , and yes they are true but there is a really important commandment there that we skip over too many times in our desire to talk about the importance of loving God and loving others. We are commanded to love ourselves. This is IMPORTANT. These are the greatest commands that Jesus gave and he made sure to have in those commandments the importance of loving ourselves.
Step 3 Love yourself
Step 3 Love yourself
So we know that we have to choose to love, we know that we need to forgive always, we have found that we have to love ourselves. But how, what is my example.
We love because He first loved us.
Our example our source is the God we serve. We can love like God because he loved us first. He created us, feelings and all. We can love like God because he lives in us and he has called us to live in him.
For in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
Step 4 Love like God
Step 4 Love like God
So that’s how we are supposed to love. In fact love is so important the comandment to Love is so important that it is someting we are remined of.
I was very glad to find some of your children walking in the truth, in keeping with a command we have received from the Father. So now I urge you, dear lady—not as if I were writing you a new command, but one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk according to His commands. This is the command as you have heard it from the beginning: you must walk in love.
2 John 1:
So what’s it look like?
So what’s it look like?
If I speak human or angelic languages
but do not have love,
I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have the gift of prophecy
and understand all mysteries
and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith
so that I can move mountains
but do not have love, I am nothing.
And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor,
and if I give my body in order to boast
but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind.
Love does not envy,
is not boastful, is not conceited,
does not act improperly,
is not selfish, is not provoked,
and does not keep a record of wrongs.
Love finds no joy in unrighteousness
but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
But as for prophecies,
they will come to an end;
as for languages, they will cease;
as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
For we know in part,
and we prophesy in part.
But when the perfect comes,
the partial will come to an end.
When I was a child,
I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child,
I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man,
I put aside childish things.
For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
Now I know in part,
but then I will know fully,
as I am fully known.
Now these three remain:
faith, hope, and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
We have heard that chapter read countless times, it’s so pretty but it can be summed up pretty easily.
Words matter but actions matter more
Actions matter but motive matters more
Giving matters but why I give matters more
Love looks at people through the eyes of Christ, not the eyes of self.
Love is the reason for all that we are and all that we can be.
Love must be on the vine of our lives, it must be active and the only reason it is even possible for us to love…well is because of him.
This Week’s Challenge
This Week’s Challenge
Make or buy two cards. If you buy them make sure they are blank. Send the first to someone easy to love. Send the second to someone that you have to choose to love. Find a verse of encouragement and write that in the card as well as words from your heart.