What's Love Got To Do With It...?

I started a new small group bible study this week hosted by one of our Mission's department ministers.  The idea, from what I gather, is to evaluate 10 essential questions for our growth in the Christian faith.  The class was outlined to be a place to mature since it has been observed so often that there are "plateaued" faiths in the walls of our churches, that they have become a place to silently receive teaching without producing significant changes in how we live or pray or interact with the world around us.  Sanctification, learning about God and what He has planned for us, how he loves us and how we are to love others are life long processes, journeys that are not complete until we are with Him for eternity.  

And so we come to lesson 1: "Love God and people"...really?

The Priority in Life is Love

 

"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and Prophets."  Matthew 22:37-40

 

We are called first to love God and from that to love others.  But what does loving God look like and what does loving other look like? And why is love important?  One night this week I was reading through various scriptures that talk about love (and there are a LOT) and I found 1 John 4:7-5:4, it is well known in pieces but reading it as whole chunk was pretty breath taking.  Let's dive in...

"Everyone who believe that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves His children as well.  This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commends.  In fact, this is the love for God: to keep His commands.  And His commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world." 1 John 5:1-4

It is all connected: 

• We love God by doing what He has asked of us 
• We also love other when we do those things
• And, BONUS, because we belong to God it is not hard to obey His commands because our savior has overcome the world for us and we receive the same power He has (John 16:33, Acts 1:8)

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.  Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God." 1 John 4:7

"...God is love.  Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them...We love because He first loved us.  Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother and sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, who they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And He has given us this command: Anyone who love God must also love their brother and sister" 1 John 4:16, 19-21

• If we don't love others we are proving we don't know God because if we knew God and His great love for us, if we understood that God is love and we are only recipients of that love because He chose to extend it we would do nothing but pass that love along
• It makes sense right, when you are secure in love you love.  No matter what anyone else does or says to you or about you you are secure, so their words and actions don't matter, they don't stick to you and penetrate you and control you, they are inconsequential. 
• His command to us here says if we love God, to love others - tie that in with the last section and we see that loving God means obeying His commands, so to show our love for God we must obey His command and His command is to love others.
• And there it is: our love for others is evidence of our love for God and our faith in Him 

So...why love? (you know, other than the whole obedience to God thing)

"This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement: In this world we are to be like Jesus.  There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has no has to do with punishment.  The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:17-18

• We are not given a spirit of fear, we were given a spirit of power, and LOVE, and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7)
• So we choose to lay aside fear and instead choose to live our lives with love as the priority, because that love shows that we know our fate
• Anger, bitterness, hate, fear, timidity...all of it gives control of our lives to the person or thing or group that facilitated those emotions, instead of God
• Love reveals that we are not controlled by anything but God, that we trust our eternity is secure in Him
• We do not fear because we know we will not ultimately receive punishment because of God's love evidenced in Christ's sacrifice, therefore we are made perfect in His love and set free to love others!

Final Thoughts:

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." 1 Corinthians 12:1-3

• Summation from our teacher: "Without love impressive gifts, faith, etc are meaningless"
• So love, because God fist loved us (1 John 4:19) and this love is what brings meaning to our lives
• Outside of love what do we achieve, what do we gain?  Nothing...but if we live with love, reflecting Christ, we gain eternity!