Seermon (Do we know what love really is???)
Not what some love novel says or the media or your unsaved co-worker whose working on his or her 4th marriage, or that uncle who never read the bible or set foot in a church. The world’s definition of love is nothing like the love our Heavenly Father desires for us to move in and to reflect to one another.
1 John 4:16 tells us that "God is Love", but how do we as mere mortals define Love?
Webster’s Dictionary defines love as "an intense affection for another person based on familial or personal ties". However God is Agape, which is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love, the highest form of love.
However, for sinful man our version of love is conditional; in other words, we love because the other person fulfill a condition that we require in order for us to love them, until they are unable to meet that need. Then the love as the world understands it is over, “for you see I'm just not in love with him/her anymore.” How many times have you heard or said, "I love you because you are cute;" or "I love you because you take good care of me;" or "I love you because you are fun to be with"? Therapist describe love as a chemical reaction to outside stimuli
We love based on feelings and emotions that can change from one moment to the next. In other words one day you stopped drinking their Kool-Aid so the marriage is over.
The divorce rate in the Christian community is higher than that of the non-Christians. Image if Christ would flip flop back and forth with His love for us. Image if Jesus said I love you Willis the next day He tells me that because I can’t seem to stop sinning He has grown weary of that behavior and is now leaving me. Wow, I’m so glade my Savior does think that way, because he would have left me 3 minutes after he met me. God tells us to love even our enemies so why then can’t we practice love with our spouse first, learn to perfect it at home first.
You’re not commanded to do it when you felt like it. A person who is truly born again desires to do what God says even when he/she is not feeling it. Our feelings have been corrupted by our old lives before we came to Christ. Our feelings are not automatically changed, when we come to Christ, however our feelings will continue to act like they were taught to act until we subdue them and bring them under the control of the direction of the Holy Spirit. It is hypocritical to act on what you feel instead of who you are in Christ Jesus.
If you can receive this basic truth that God's love is perfect, and God wants you to take upon yourself His perfect love so that you can begin to love to your spouse as God commanded not as the world taught you, Ponder this for a second God’s love for you is not based on the choices that you have made, nor on the way you act. Love as God loves with all of Himself. If Agape love is not in your marriage then God has not been invited into your marriage. A successful marriage requires God love to be the corner stone upon which a Christian marriage must be build upon. Is your marriage build on God’s Agape love???
Romans 5:8 says, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
God's love wasn't based upon what we had done for Him or what we deserved but upon His choice to love us. We didn't do anything to merit God's love. He just chose to give it to us. We can choose to receive that kind of love and then give it to others in the same way. An unmerited gift from God, not one us has earned his love what we earned was death and hell, but instead God’s love paid our sin debt.
Can we really comprehend "unconditional" love? The closest example we have is a real mother's love for her children. Without the help of God's Agape love cannot be manufactured for it is a perfect love, however we are certainly capable of Eros (which a passionate love meant for husbands and wives) but even that can fade away. Philia the love you have for a friend, today's friends could be tomorrow’s enemy. Agape love is what God expects us to give our spouse, our children, the body, our friends, our co-workers and our neighbors. Agape love is long suffering and is kind; not envy; does not seek its own, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things it honors God, and heals. It is a perfect love, it’s the love God wants to give to the world but they want receive it, stop denying your spouse or your children this love.
The Word of God tells us that "God is Love” How does God define Love?
John 3:16,
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
God defines love unselfish giving. God sacrificed His only begotten Son for a sinner like me, so that I would know what true unadulterated love is.
Matthew 22:37-39
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself
I believe Jesus gave us two commandments to try to make it simpler for us. Because were God’ love abides
1. You want murder your neighbor
2. You want sleep with your neighbor spouse
3. You want lie on your neighbor
Are you seeing a pattern here what love prevents? For sin is selfishness and love is selflessness..
1 John 3:10 tells us that, whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. We are told that the world will know us by the Love we have one for another. Instead I saying to you, he who does not love their spouse cannot love God since God ordained marriage.
Do you have love for those God has given you charge over!!! What would do for those around you? Would you die for the person next to you? Would you die for a murder or thief, a liar, an adulator, Jesus did just that for each of us, because He loved us. I want my marriage to reflect God's Agape love, because my love is shallow and based on emotions, which change more times than the tide does.
And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).
We have to put on unconditional love of God in order for our marriage to produce good fruit. As you endeavor to live with your spouse, you are going to learn all their faults and just how imperfect they really are. When you operate in God’s Agape love, none of that matter because you are aware of how imperfect you are and how Christ yet loved you.
Let God ‘s perfect Agape love abide in you that way your spouse and your children will see Christ in you and your home will be blessed.
Not what some love novel says or the media or your unsaved co-worker whose working on his or her 4th marriage, or that uncle who never read the bible or set foot in a church. The world’s definition of love is nothing like the love our Heavenly Father desires for us to move in and to reflect to one another.
1 John 4:16 tells us that "God is Love", but how do we as mere mortals define Love?
Webster’s Dictionary defines love as "an intense affection for another person based on familial or personal ties". However God is Agape, which is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love, the highest form of love.
However, for sinful man our version of love is conditional; in other words, we love because the other person fulfill a condition that we require in order for us to love them, until they are unable to meet that need. Then the love as the world understands it is over, “for you see I'm just not in love with him/her anymore.” How many times have you heard or said, "I love you because you are cute;" or "I love you because you take good care of me;" or "I love you because you are fun to be with"? Therapist describe love as a chemical reaction to outside stimuli
We love based on feelings and emotions that can change from one moment to the next. In other words one day you stopped drinking their Kool-Aid so the marriage is over.
The divorce rate in the Christian community is higher than that of the non-Christians. Image if Christ would flip flop back and forth with His love for us. Image if Jesus said I love you Willis the next day He tells me that because I can’t seem to stop sinning He has grown weary of that behavior and is now leaving me. Wow, I’m so glade my Savior does think that way, because he would have left me 3 minutes after he met me. God tells us to love even our enemies so why then can’t we practice love with our spouse first, learn to perfect it at home first.
You’re not commanded to do it when you felt like it. A person who is truly born again desires to do what God says even when he/she is not feeling it. Our feelings have been corrupted by our old lives before we came to Christ. Our feelings are not automatically changed, when we come to Christ, however our feelings will continue to act like they were taught to act until we subdue them and bring them under the control of the direction of the Holy Spirit. It is hypocritical to act on what you feel instead of who you are in Christ Jesus.
If you can receive this basic truth that God's love is perfect, and God wants you to take upon yourself His perfect love so that you can begin to love to your spouse as God commanded not as the world taught you, Ponder this for a second God’s love for you is not based on the choices that you have made, nor on the way you act. Love as God loves with all of Himself. If Agape love is not in your marriage then God has not been invited into your marriage. A successful marriage requires God love to be the corner stone upon which a Christian marriage must be build upon. Is your marriage build on God’s Agape love???
Romans 5:8 says, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
God's love wasn't based upon what we had done for Him or what we deserved but upon His choice to love us. We didn't do anything to merit God's love. He just chose to give it to us. We can choose to receive that kind of love and then give it to others in the same way. An unmerited gift from God, not one us has earned his love what we earned was death and hell, but instead God’s love paid our sin debt.
Can we really comprehend "unconditional" love? The closest example we have is a real mother's love for her children. Without the help of God's Agape love cannot be manufactured for it is a perfect love, however we are certainly capable of Eros (which a passionate love meant for husbands and wives) but even that can fade away. Philia the love you have for a friend, today's friends could be tomorrow’s enemy. Agape love is what God expects us to give our spouse, our children, the body, our friends, our co-workers and our neighbors. Agape love is long suffering and is kind; not envy; does not seek its own, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things it honors God, and heals. It is a perfect love, it’s the love God wants to give to the world but they want receive it, stop denying your spouse or your children this love.
The Word of God tells us that "God is Love” How does God define Love?
John 3:16,
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
God defines love unselfish giving. God sacrificed His only begotten Son for a sinner like me, so that I would know what true unadulterated love is.
Matthew 22:37-39
37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself
I believe Jesus gave us two commandments to try to make it simpler for us. Because were God’ love abides
1. You want murder your neighbor
2. You want sleep with your neighbor spouse
3. You want lie on your neighbor
Are you seeing a pattern here what love prevents? For sin is selfishness and love is selflessness..
1 John 3:10 tells us that, whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. We are told that the world will know us by the Love we have one for another. Instead I saying to you, he who does not love their spouse cannot love God since God ordained marriage.
Do you have love for those God has given you charge over!!! What would do for those around you? Would you die for the person next to you? Would you die for a murder or thief, a liar, an adulator, Jesus did just that for each of us, because He loved us. I want my marriage to reflect God's Agape love, because my love is shallow and based on emotions, which change more times than the tide does.
And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8).
We have to put on unconditional love of God in order for our marriage to produce good fruit. As you endeavor to live with your spouse, you are going to learn all their faults and just how imperfect they really are. When you operate in God’s Agape love, none of that matter because you are aware of how imperfect you are and how Christ yet loved you.
Let God ‘s perfect Agape love abide in you that way your spouse and your children will see Christ in you and your home will be blessed.
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