What's Love Got To Do With It?

Well, today we are starting a new series called / / What’s Love Got To Do With It? Today and for the month of May we are going to focus on the topic of love, specifically what Paul writes about love in 1 Corinthians 12:31 - 1 Corinthians 14:1.

Last week was Easter, and we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. The very foundation of the Christian Church. / / If we are asking what makes Christianity different - it’s Easter Sunday, Literally, it’s what makes us who we are, it’s what defines us, it’s what sets Christianity apart from every other philosophy, every other religion, every other system. / / Jesus Christ did NOT stay dead.

Other religions may have good teachings. Philosophers may have said some pretty great things, even really important things to live our lives by, that would make our lives better, or that would help us in our relationships and lives with other people. But when God set out to define and to show us how HE loves us, it included the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it wasn’t for a select few, it wasn’t for a predetermined elite. And even though Jesus defined he had come first for the lost people of Israel, he made it very clear through his life and actions, and his instructions to his disciples that this message, this love, this gift of eternal life is for all mankind, without condition!

/ / Love by its very definition can not be conditional.

To say there is a God who loves us, but then to demand that He requires that we do everything right to receive that love, and that he would take it away if we did something wrong - means that God isn’t really loving. That would mean He’s controlling us. And as much as Christians love to say, “God is in control.” God does not TAKE control of you or me to make our decisions for us.

Yes, / / God is absolutely in control...... of Himself.

/ / God is in control...... of His own emotions.

/ / God is in control...... of His own plan.

/ / God is in control...... of His own purposes AND His desire and His love for humanity. And IN that control He chooses every day to love. Lamentations 3:22-23 says, / / The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning.

Everyday we wake up we can say, “God loves me…not because he has to, but because he wants to. Because He chooses to.”

Now, here’s the difference: / / God’s love is unconditional, John 3:16, For this is how God loved the world [everyone]: He gave his one and only Son… / / But his invitation is something we must accept through belief - SO THAT everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life…

That’s the defining point right there. God loves eternally, and without reservation - but the gift of eternal life is something we are invited to receive. The gift is free, it’s all because of the grace of God, grace being the unmerited, undeserved favor of God, but it’s received through faith, believing in Jesus Christ as our savior, as our Messiah - the anointed one who has come to rescue and deliver us!

John 3:17, the very next verse, says, / / God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. It is God’s desire to save everyone - let’s just establish that, ok… That is the very celebration of Easter!

And remember, John 3:16-17 - that is Jesus saying that, who IS the Son who was sent by God, so we can absolutely believe it to be true. But it goes even one step further, Jesus wasn’t just faithful and obedient to the Father, although he absolutely was, but Jesus IS God. We believe in the Trinity of God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. They are not a hierarchy of importance, they are the God we worship. And as confusing or difficult as that may be to understand sometimes, the truth is, when Jesus says God sent Him into the world he’s actually showing just how in control of himself he is. It was his choice. He wasn’t sent into this world kicking and screaming.

Ephesians 1:4 says, / / Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us IN CHRIST to be holy and without fault in his eyes.

Before he made the world.

How good were you before you existed?

How great at following the rules were you before the world was even created?

Did you do anything right?

This is the love of God - expressed through the life, death AND resurrection of Jesus Christ, and ultimately fulfilled in the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Romans 5:5 says, / / For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

That’s pretty powerful stuff. / / God doesn’t just want you to KNOW that you are loved. He wants you to fully and extravagantly experience that love.

This is the reality - We’ve looked at this before, Romans 3:23 says, / / For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard...

So there is a standard. God’s love isn’t dependent on our ability to follow the rules, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t rules to follow. God’s love is not given to us for getting it right, but that doesn’t mean we’re not meant to get it right. In fact, being loved regardless of whether we get it right or not should give us extra encouragement and fortitude to get it right.

If someone loves us, and we know that their love is not based on how good we are, comes to us and says that our life will be better if we do what they say, but won’t love us less if we don’t, in fact, there’s no motivation on their part for us to get it right in regards to their love for us, they don’t benefit from us getting it right or not, it’s entirely about us, so there’s zero motivation EXCEPT to try and help us live a better live, then wouldn’t we want to follow what they say?

“I mean, you do what you want to do, I’m just letting you know, if you walk down this path you’re going to trip on that root and fall on your face and break your nose, but if you walk down this path over here, there’s actually a thousand dollars on a table just beyond that ridge, and it’s totally yours… .your choice.”

That is pretty much what God did when he gave Israel the law and what Jesus did when he said follow me.

I’m not saying there isn’t hardship, or we don’t go through stuff, that would be naive. And if you’ve read the bible you probably saw that Jesus actually said, In this world you’ll experience trouble… So I’m not advocating for a life without trouble, BUT I am pushing myself as best as I can to believe and live by a life that regardless of trouble and trial I am content and happy because I have come to a place of His love and peace in my life that actually gets me THROUGH those difficult times.

See, falling short of God’s standard, as Romans 3:23 says, simply points us to the need we have for Jesus Christ to save us. Paul would write just a little bit later in this letter, in Romans 5:8, one of my favorite verse, / / But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.

And it’s very interesting that Paul is the one who defines all of this for us.

As we saw, he just defined that we all sin, we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. but listen to what he says about himself in Philippians 3:5-6, / / I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin - a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demanded the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault.

Obeyed the law without fault? But didn’t he say, everyone has sinned. In fact, in his letter to Timothy, he says in 1 Timothy 1:15, / / This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” - and I am the worst of them all.

So which is it? Is he the best, or is he the worst? Is he without fault, or with all the fault?

See, those who try to follow all the rules because they think that’s their way to salvation are missing the point just as much as those who don’t care about the rules and live however they want. They both miss that God sent Jesus Christ as a sacrifice to free us from the bondage of sin regardless of their actions and that he decided to do so because of love before the world was even created. / / Redemption is not found in our actions, it’s found in our acceptance and belief in HIS action.

So, what’s love got to do with it?

Well, as I read last week, Jesus says to his disciples in John 13:34-35, / / “So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Oh wow...

So, what your’e saying is it’s not how good we are?

Or how many Christian memes we repost on Social Media? Like, even the ones where it says, “I bet you won’t repost this...” so I feel guilty like I should repost it...

What about getting in arguments about christian stuff…because i’m totally defending the gospel?

no?.... what proves to the world that we are followers of Jesus is that we love like Jesus loves?

Seems pretty important. Kinda feels like maybe it’s the most important?

So, we’re going to be looking at 1 Corinthians 13, which of course isn’t the only place the bible talks about love, obviously, I’ve quoted quite a bit of scripture already today and a lot of it has been about love. And 1 Corinthians 13 certainly isn’t an exhaustive list of all the things love is and does and how it works, but, Paul writes this, I don’t know, let’s call it a summary of how love acts, reacts, responds and chooses to live that if we can learn to follow it we will be well on our way to loving like Jesus loves.

Let’s start a few verses before in 1 Corinthians 12:27. Paul has been talking about the body of Christ, the church, and he’s been talking about the fact that we’re all unique, and that we’re all needed. He’s been explaining that we all have different gifts and talents given to us by God and that God has created us all individually with a purpose. And he says, starting in vs 27, / / All of us together are Christ body, and each of you is a part of it. Here are some of the parts God has appointed to the church: first are apostles, second are prophets, third are teachers, then those who do miracles, those who have the gift of healing, those who can help others, those who have the gift of leadership, those who speak in unknown languages.

Are we all apostles? Are we all prophets? Are we all teachers? Do we all have the power to do miracles? Do we all have the gift of healing? Do we all have the ability to speak in unknown languages? Do we all have the ability to interpret unknown languages? Of course not! So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts.

So, Paul is encouraging the church in Corinth to learn and live by what it means to be the church, to be the body, each with our own diverse parts and gifts from the Spirit of God. Really, he’s been stressing this point, the diversity of gifts and the necessity for the gifts to be interactive within the body of Christ. So he can’t exclude any of the gifts, healing, or miracles, but he’s also not saying, pick what you think are the most IMPORTANT, or what you consider to be at the top of the list. I think the church has unfortunately read into this scripture incorrectly when we see that he wrote, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, and somehow think he’s explaining a hierarchy for ministry and so it is almost a bit confusing when some translations write vs 31 as, / / earnestly desire the higher gifts, or some say, the greater gifts. The King James says the best gifts...

But we can definitely know that he’s not talking about hierarchy and what we would consider to be importance, because of the very next thing he says. He ends chapter 12 with this, / / But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.

That line leads us into chapter 13. This is another fantastic example of WHY we need to read the bible in context. If you’re reading chapter 12 and skip that line you’ll think it’s all about the gifts. If you start chapter 13 without knowing that line is there, you aren’t getting the full weight of what he’s saying.

And after talking about all those gifts, and even as the ESV says it this way, / / But earnestly desire the higher gifts. He ends with, And I will show you a still more excellent way.

So, what is this more excellent way? Greater than the greatest gifts God has given the church to minister and encourage and lift us up and lead us in the way of the life of Jesus?

1 Corinthians 13:1

/ / If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

And we are going to dig into that a bit this morning, but let’s keep reading for a moment and see what he says about love itself...

/ / Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! ...

And then we skip down to vs 13...

Three things will last forever - faith, hope and love - and the greatest of these is love.

And that ends Chapter 13, but we have to remember that these books were letters, they weren’t books, they weren’t written with chapter and verse, so it’s very important, as we saw with the last line of chapter 12, to see the first line of chapter 14. Paul writes, and now we have it as starting chapter 14 and verse 1, / / Let love be your highest goal!

So, let’s back up a little bit here.

Over the next few weeks we’re going to break down each of these things that Paul says love IS, but today I want to talk through the first few verses here of Chapter 13. Paul gives us some really good insight into preparing ourselves for this journey of looking at what love has to do with it.

Ending chapter 12 he says he’s going to show us the best way to live life… / / I will show you a still more excellent way! But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.

Of course, we know he’s getting to the point that living by love is the best way. That’s where he’s headed. And really, just in that one line he’s saying the gifts are good, but mean nothing if you don’t have love, but he takes the opportunity to really dig into that in the first few verses of chapter 13, and in those verses he points to three areas of our lives that we need to learn to keep in check when it comes to love.

/ / 1. Mental Ability

1 Corinthians 13:1 says, If I could speak in all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal...

Let’s call this one, / / how smart we think we are...

Now we can definitely see the connection here with the spiritual gift of unknown languages, but, if we think of this from the perspective of those receiving from that spiritual gifts that he’s talking about, this is a very mental thing. You’re speaking my language, I understand you. And even if that’s hugely spiritual, because you don’t speak my language., basically, what Paul is saying here is, / / if you don’t think about WHAT and HOW you say what you say, it’s just noise.

He uses two phrases here to describe how non-loving our language, our words, our communication with others can be - / / I would only be a “noisy gong” or a “clanging cymbal”.

The word / / noisy means, of course to make a loud noise, but it also means to reverberate, to roar, as in the sound of the roaring of the sea. If you think of that violent turbulent noise in the middle of a hurricane with the waves crashing into the shore, the wind beating the side of buildings, the water relentlessly pushing everything aside… that, except with a / / gong… the word is chalkos, it’s a big metal disk, probably made of brass that you hit. Ever hear the saying, “it’s just a complete gong show...” ever watch The Gong Show? Almost as annoying as the America’s Got Talent “X”… Take that, and then add the relentless and violently turbulent noise of a hurricane against it.

Then, you have the word / / clanging - without love I’m a “clanging cymbal” - that word means to wail. One of the words that Strong’s concordance uses is a word I’ve never even heard, vociferate - had to look it up. It means to shout, complain, or argue loudly or vehemently. And then Strong’s says this, to repeat frequently the cry, “alala” as soldiers used to do on entering into battle...

Take that and add that to a Cymbal....

If you’ve ever met anyone that used this phrase, “I just say it like it is...” there’s a good chance they’ve probably offended someone, hurt someone and they themselves have felt misunderstood in their lives.

Saying something isn’t always the right thing to do, and saying something without the care, love and honor that the words need can end up doing more damage than good. You can actually need to say something, but do it so wrong that the moment becomes unbearable.

I just had this conversation with someone the other day, how something someone was saying to them was becoming very difficult to hear simply because of how they were saying it in both language and mannerism. But when we took a step back and looked at what was being said and kind of interpreted the content of the message, we realized the person was simply just not communicating properly, and the reason that happens is often because we don’t take the time / effort to say what we need to say in a way that is loving, caring and honoring. And the result can actually do damage.

Sometimes the desire to use our words to put someone in their place is what we are feeling, but we have to remember, Proverbs is full of encouragement to watch what we say and how we say it, and the best of it is probably Proverbs 18:21, / / The tongue can bring death or life; those who love to talk will reap the consequences.

Doesn’t matter how smart we think we are, we have to use our hearts with communicating!

/ / 2. Spiritual Ability

Next verse, 1 Corinthians 13:2, If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing...

Let’s call that one, How gifted we think we are...

And Wow, I mean, Paul is starting to get a little harsh. At least he’s saying it about himself. It’s definitely no fun when someone says to you, “You’re nothing...” or “You’re nothing to me...” So Paul is saying that of himself, If “I” had the gift of prophecy... basically saying “Listen self, if you don’t learn to love people you’re nothing...”

This is pointing to all the spiritual gifting you can have. You can be absolutely gifted, and let’s call it spiritually talented. I mean, God has given you all these beautiful gifts to encourage and lift up and help other people, but if you don’t understand it’s all about love, you’ll end up using it wrongly and people end up getting hurt. I’ve seen this before. If you’ve been in the church long enough you’ve probably seen this. Someone has a spiritual gift, but just doesn’t know how to use it in the way that God intended, out of a heart of love, and people end up getting hurt.

Let’s be honest, sometimes our humanity gets in the way of our eternity. And what I mean by that is we act like our human nature rather than our new nature in Christ.

So, let’s say someone has the gift of prophecy, but doesn’t use it with a heart and attitude of love, and what they hear from the heart of God can end up being damaging. Why? Because prophecy is sometimes seeing something about someone, or something about their lives that God wants to heal or speak His love into, but if you just see the problem, and call out the problem and expose it, you can cause sometimes irreparable damage. “I just say it like it is bro...”

I’ve had this happen to me before, and I’ve seen this done right, I’ve seen this done wrong. Let’s say I’m praying for someone and God speaks to me in my heart and says, “This person really deals with anger toward their kids...” and all I say is, "God just told me you’re a really angry person and you’re taking it out on your kids...”

How’s that going to come across and how’s that going to help them?

Most likely, they already know that, don’t they? But, when we hear someone is dealing with something, and we match that with the love of God we can say something like, “I really feel the heart of God for you and your children right now. And I feel like God wants to meet your kids through you. We have an incredible opportunity to love our children with the love we receive from God and I just get this sense that God wants to bring you into a really special relationship with Him so that your kids feel His love through you. So, do you mind if I pray for you and your kids? I want to bless your relationship with God and also your relationship with your children. I want to pray that God meets you, and that you experience a fresh revelation and understanding of His love for you, and that He shows you new ways of expressing that love to your family.”

A little better, right? Same knowledge from God - but one is matched with the truth we know from the word of God that as parents we are meant to nurture, love and introduce our children to a relationship with God. So, knowledge, matched with truth, carried in love, directing someone to an encounter with God.

What’s the saying, You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar...

So, all the spiritual power and ability means nothing if you can’t do it in love. Paul says it means nothing. My actions mean nothing. My ability means nothing. Actually, he says, if I do it wrong, I mean nothing.

The misrepresentation of God is one of the worst things in this world, in my opinion. And unfortunately that has happened in every age, in every generation, in every culture and on every continent.... ok, maybe not Antarctica, but who knows. But when someone goes to a church and gets hurt. When someone is told God hates them, instead of being told what they are doing is something that falls short of God’s standard, but He still LOVES them! When someone experiences a human “ministering in the name of God” and ends up walking away worse off than when they came in, I think that absolutely breaks the heart of God.

This is why I am saying over and over again that the goal and the purpose here is to foster and develop / / HEALTHY COMMUNITY. Because if we are not growing, and learning to work through our differences and challenges, and if we aren’t actually becoming MORE like Christ in this pursuit of him, then we’re doing it wrong. This isn’t about religion like it’s some sort of moral social club. It’s about following Jesus Christ, and learning to follow Him together, and allowing him to transform our lives so that we become more like Him.

Remember last week I read John 3:16, / / …this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

That word / / believe means to accept something as being true! to believe is more than just saying it, it’s to commit to it, and in the case of a person, to entrust yourself to them. So,

/ / To believe in Jesus is to commit to Him, to follow Him, to entrust our lives to Him. And in that IS the path to life.

And when we commit to the way of Jesus Christ, we ultimately are saying we want to commit to each other. And so if we have issues, I want to work them out. If you’ve been hurt by something I did or did not do, I want you to be healed from the hurt, and I want me to learn and grow and hopefully we won’t experience that again!

So, like Paul says, it’s not good enough to have spiritual ability, ministry ability, prophetic power, without love it all means nothing.

/ / 3. Physical Ability

1 Corinthians 13:3, If I give everything I have to the poor and even sacrifice my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing...

Alright, let’s call this one, / / How awesome and generous we think we are...

The last thing Paul tackles here before really getting in to what Love looks like is that physical ability gains nothing if we don’t love. He points to two things specifically - Giving & Sacrifice.

And this one is a bit different. In verse one he says, If I don’t love others I’m just a noisy gong or clanging cymbal, meaning, the person I’m talking to is not going to gain anything from what I’m saying.

The second one he says, If I didn’t love others, I would be nothing - meaning, our spiritual gifts and abilities are not our identity. Our true identity must be found in Jesus Christ, not in what we do, EVEN IF it’s for Him!

And this last one he says, / / I can give everything I own, I can even give my life, but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. Now this is interesting, because Jesus himself says, / / Give and you will receive. Your gift will return to you in full... The amount you give will determine how much you get back. (Luke 6:38)

This is what we call the law of sowing and reaping. And I’ve seen it in operation in peoples lives who don’t follow Jesus. Generosity breeds abundance. It’s a spiritual law in this universe that God has instituted. It’s just there, I’ve seen it work all over the place.

BUT, / / just because you receive abundance, doesn’t mean you gained anything worth gaining. Let me explain - last week we read Matthew 16:26, Jesus says, / / …what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?

Just because you’re rich, don’t mean you’re happy or whole. Just means you’re rich. Money isn’t what matters. Paul is saying that even if you have a lot and you can give a lot away, but the only thing you get in return for your giving is getting more, you’ve gained nothing of consequence!

He even goes as far as saying, I could even sacrifice my body. The ESV says, / / and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

That’s an interesting one too. Jesus actually said in John 15:13-14, 17, / / There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command... This is my command: Love each other.

Jesus is pointing to the fact that He is going to lay down His life for us and Paul is pointing to the fact that unless we learn to love like Jesus, laying down your life isn’t going to gain us anything. If you’re going to give your life to a cause, or for a cause, make sure it’s worth it!

Another thing we really need to watch out for.: The NLT says, / / If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it;… I wonder if the translators had the foresight to write it that way with respect to our current world and the extreme narcissism we see online these days. Sometimes I see these videos of people doing good things, and wonder at the production of it all. They paint the picture like it was this beautiful random act of kindness, but had the camera positioned so perfectly and rolling the whole time.

This is a fine line, and I think points directly to motive. We’ve posted photos and videos of our food distributions here. I’m not saying that’s all bad all the time. What I am saying is that we always need to watch our motives for why we do the things we do, because if we do it without love, then the purpose we started out for, which is to do the work of the kingdom, we’re not gaining that.

I had this very challenge just yesterday, and I’m telling you this without details so as to follow scripture to the best of my ability. Kelley and I felt we were to help someone in need within the community and it was through a website where you can post who was giving and then if you want share that you gave on all your social media platforms. And I had the thought, “I mean, if we’re going to give, this could be a great opportunity to show our larger community that that’s the type of people we are, we like to help…could be good publicity...”

Well, listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 6:1-4, / / Watch out! Don’t do your good deeds publicly, to be admired by others, for you will lose the reward from your Father in heaven. When you give to someone in need, don’t do as the hypocrites do - blowing trumpets in the synagogues and streets to call attention to their acts of charity! I tell you the truth, they have received all the reward they will ever get. But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. Give your gifts in private, and your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.

We have to look very closely here.... “to be admired by others”. This is the key and I know this is the heart of God on display here because Jesus also said in Matthew 5:16, / / …let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.

That’s the difference! And the question is this: Are we giving to be admired by others, or bring admiration to God our Father! Are we calling attention to our acts of charity, or calling attention to the Love of God for the person?

Again, we live in a very interesting world. We post on social media so that people know they can come get food. We get funding for that food by getting the information of the people we’re giving to. What Jesus, and also Paul are pointing to here is the / / motive of the heart. Jesus says, don’t do it like the hypocrites do… motive of the heart. Paul is saying, whatever you do, make sure it’s coming from a heart of love, make sure your motive is right!

So, taking all three of these things together, Mental, Spiritual and Physical ability, or as Paul says, speak any language, prophecy and work miracles of faith, and give away everything you have, essentially, what he’s saying is - / / what you do isn’t nearly as important as WHY you do it, because the why should always come from love and love always starts with God…

Remember what he says just prior to starting chapter 13, / / …now let me show you a way of life that is best of all!

Love comes from the very heart of God, which means, if we want to be effective in this life, whether that is through mental knowledge, spiritual ability or physical acts, good deeds, or whatever else, we need to first connect with God to receive His love. 1 John 4:7-21 is this incredible discourse on love, and I want to encourage you to take this as your homework this week, read through that scripture, 1 John 4:7-21 - but a couple take aways and highlights from it:

/ / verse 7 says …love comes from God.

/ / verse 8… God is love.

/ / verse 10… This is real love - not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son, Jesus Christ!

/ / verse 19… We love each other because he loved us first. (homework)

Kelley and I realized years ago that if our marriage was going to be a success, we needed to allow God to truly love us first, so that we could love each other. See, if I’m relying on you to love me and fulfill my needs for love, you’re gonna let me down time and time again, because you’re just human. BUT, if we first receive our love from God, find that true place of acceptance that our hearts need, then we can really love each other because we’re not trying to get each other to meet a need we could never meet in the first place.

Jesus actually says in Matthew 7:21-23, / / “Not everyone who calls out to me, ‘Lord! Lord! will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On judgement day many will say to me, ‘Lord! Lord! We prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name.’ But I will reply, ‘I never knew you. Get away from me, you who break God’s laws.’”

That might sound a little harsh, but what’s the law, what’s he talking about?

Well, someone asked Jesus that very question in Matthew 22:35-40, / / …an expert in religious law, tried to trap him [Jesus] with this question: “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?” Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

Love God, Love people. Everything in all of the law and prophets of the bible are based on those two things. And Jesus clarifies this for his disciples, which we read earlier in John 13:34, / / A new commandment I give to you: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

Even though it sounds like the commandment that’s already been given, Jesus is elevating it now because he’s spent time with these disciples showing them how He loves. So, it’s not just about loving, it’s about truly learning to love like HE loves and that only happens when we actually receive His love first.

So, / / What’s love got to do with it? EVERYTHING!

Just like Jesus said, If you want to show the world that you’re truly followers of me, then learn to love. It’s the most important part. Because all the gifts and all the amazing things and all the wonders in the world and in the heavens mean nothing if your heart never learns to truly receive and give love.

I want to pray for you this morning and I want you to open your hearts to receive an outpouring of God’s love to you.

Father, thank you. Thank you for the love you have shown us through the life of Jesus Christ. Thank you for the love you have shown us through His dead and resurrection. God, I ask this morning that you would do a miracle and pour into us your amazing love. Your word says that you pour your love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit whom you have given to us. So I am asking right now that your love, not just the idea of it, not just the theology of it, not just the truth of it, but the experience of it, would be poured into our hearts right now, in your name Jesus. You said anything we ask, so we are asking, pour out your love in a new and fresh and experiential way that goes beyond our mind and straight to our hearts. Yes, we want to know about your love, but we NEED to feel your love.