2014-04-11 - Love, Love, Love
Love, love, love - its all about love so, today, thats what
were going to examine. We find in scripture that love is very important.
Matthew 22:35-40 (NASB)
One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him,
36 Teacher, which is the great commandment in the
Law? 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 foremost commandment.
39 The second is like it, You shall love your neighbor
as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend the
whole Law and the Prophets.
Jesus tells us exactly what to do. Our greatest commands direct from Jesus'
mouth are to love God with every fiber of our being and secondly to love
people as much as we love ourselves. These two things really do sum up all
the law. You won't put other things before God as false idols if you love
him above all. You won't steal from someone if you love them as much as you
love yourself because you will want them to have their own stuff.
Well thats well and good for Jesus to tell us we need to do these things
but if I'm being honest I must confess that knowing what to do and fully
grasping and executing on the how to do it is an issue for me. I struggle
at times with knowing what that looks like and how it plays out. Am I alone
or do any of you not get it?
Well as luck, or more accurately divine providence, would have it God knew
we might need help so he inspired Paul to write 1 Corinthians 13. Below you
will find the passage in two different translations. I encourage you to read
it in many more as well to really get a handle on the words being used.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
(NIRV) - Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not want
what belongs to others. It does not brag. It is not proud.
5 It is not rude. It does not look out for its own interests.
It does not easily become angry. It does not keep track of other peoples
wrongs. 6 Love is not happy with evil. But it is full of
joy when the truth is spoken. 7 It always protects. It always
trusts. It always hopes. It never gives up. 8 Love never
fails.
(NASB) - Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous;
love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act
unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into
account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness,
but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love
never fails
This is the how to manual on love. Love is
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Patient
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Kind
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Not Jealous
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Not Arrogant
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Not Rude
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Not Self-serving
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Not Provoked
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Forgives
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Not Satisfied with Evil
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Longing for Truth
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Protective
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Trustung
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Work through all fourteen of these things with examples of how they play
out with God and with others. To help I will get you started with the first
one.
I love God when I patiently allow him to carve away the bad in my life without
complaining. I love others when I patiently deal with people who totally
stress me out and choose not to go ballistic on them.
And now you can run with the others. This would make for a great group activity
for your family or friends.
IHFHBOH
Adam
acdum@hotmail.com
http://www.cfdevotionals.org
All scripture references are from the KJV unless otherwise
noted.
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