Saturday, January 22, 2022

Pursue Love

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So much has been written about love and yet I still find it difficult to define in some strict sense. Love can be described from various standpoints and experienced in different ways. Love does not always mean getting what you want. It’s hard to separate love from the wisdom it often demands. Love drives both God and man to pursue and protect what they value most.

I believe love is the most powerful force in the universe.

·        Sometimes love makes us happy

·        Sometimes love makes us sad

·        Sometimes love challenges us to go along

·        Sometimes love demands we stand apart

·        Love can join and love can separate

·        Love can say yes, and love can say no

·        Love does what is best even when it will be misunderstood

·        Sometimes it is easy to love

·        Sometimes it is hard to love

·        Love can blind us

·        Love can open our eyes

·        Sometimes love is returned and at other times despised

·        Love motivates both God and man

·        Love drives us to pursue and protect what we value most

·        Love is a choice

·        Love is always the right choice – Always the best choice

·        Love is the measure of God in the person who chooses love

·        Love never fails

·        And Love is work

1 Corinthians 13 NKJV – The Love Chapter

1 ¶  Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

2  And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

3  And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 ¶  Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;

5  does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;

6  does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;

7  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 ¶  Love never fails …

13  And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 14

1 ¶  Pursue love …

God is love (1 John 4:8&16) … but … love is not God.

·        Do not love sleep (Proverbs 20:13)

·        Do not love money (1 Timothy 6:10)

·        Do not love the world (1 John 2:15)

1 John 2:15  Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

We are given so many pictures of the right kind of love from God’s Word:

·        Love the Lord your God with all your heart (Mark 12:30)

·        Love you neighbor as you do yourself (Mark 12:31)

·        Love your enemies (Matthew 5:44)

·        Speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15)

·        Faith works by love (Galatians 5:6)

·        Jesus was moved by love to heal people (Matthew 14:14)

·        Greater love has no man than his, that a man would lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13)

We love God because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

God’s love for us will not save us … our love for God will.

God’s love makes salvation available. God so loved He gave … (John 3:16)

Love, true love, God’s love, your love, can only be measured by giving. Lust is taking. Love is giving your best to and for others, even when your best may not be appreciated by others. Love drives us to pursue and protect what we value most.

Your eternal covenant relationship with God is conditional and based on a:

·        Love offered and Love accepted basis.  

How can you accept the love offered to you by God?

·        It will be a choice and it will not be as hard as you have imagined.

·        Drop your defenses … take a deep breath … open your mind and let the Spirit of God confirm His Word by giving you His peace right now.

·        Thank God for loving you.

·        Ask Him to forgive you.

·        Invite Jesus into your heart.

·        Accept God’s love and watch Him begin to change your life little by little every day.