Love Like Jesus Pt1 Series

Video Illustration: Love Quotes

The CHC challenge for 2022 – Are you willing to commit to “Love Well” this new year? To not just love but love well – to not just do the minimum but go the extra mile love always goes?

Thesis: To be able to “Love Well” means I embrace the 4 letter word, “Love” with its original definition and application given it by God. The sad reality is the word, “Love” has been twisted and distorted by this secular world and God is reclaiming its original definition. This broken world needs to experience God’s love through us His followers.

Scripture Text:

John 13:34-35: Jesus said, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

1 John 4:7-10: 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Introduction:

LOVE’s original definition is spelled out in Scripture – it is not complicated - “God is love” says 1 John 4:8 or to reverse this thought and make a point “Love is God!” God created and defined what Love is and what it should look like, and act like in this fallen world. John 1:1 tells us Jesus and God are one which also implies that Jesus is God’s love manifested in the flesh – in other words a recognizable expression of love in the flesh that all can see and model of God is found in Jesus.

Rick Warren in his book The Purpose Driven Life says, “Life is all about love!” “Because God is love, the most important lesson he wants you to learn on earth is how to love. It is in loving that we are most like him, so love is the foundation of every command he has given us; ‘the whole Law can be summed up in this one command; ‘Love others as you love yourself” (123).

Rick Warren adds, “Learning to love God helps us to able to love others. When God is involved in relationships love is the driving force in the relationship and we form close bonds because love is designed to last for eternity.” Warren takes it a step further, “Love should be your top priority, primary objective, and greatest ambition” (124). Why Warren says, “Life without love is worthless” (124).

Knowing God personally is what enables us to love others and it also empowers us to not love the world. A person who claims to have known and experienced Jesus will also know how to love others. Knowing God gives us the ability to love – To love we must have Love living and dwelling is us. Without experiencing God’s love in our lives through Jesus and the Holy Spirit - we do not know how to really love.

God is love and it becomes obvious that without God you cannot show and model love because He is the one who defines and is love. He enables us to love! There is no love outside of a connection to God! If you Know God - you Know Love --- If there is NO Love - then NO God

We within our society have redefined the word love to mean a human emotion, but the truth is love is defined as God – God is love – God’s character and nature is love and He expresses that through action – For example: Sending Jesus to die for our sins and to redeem our relationship back to God the Father is an action of love

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Jesus is the personification of God’s love in the flesh for us to see, hear, taste, smell and even touch.

This means when we carry out an act of love it demonstrates the qualities and attributes of God modeled by Jesus who dwells in us through the Holy Spirit – Note: When we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit moves into our temple – our body – which encompasses heart, mind, soul and spirit.

T.S. - So today I want to explore Jesus’ Exemplary Model of Loving Well.