Even though Valentine’s Day has come and gone I have been thinking about what is true love?\u00a0 Furthermore, how do I demonstrate true love in my life?\u00a0 In a culture where the word “love” gets tossed around like a football in the backyard, have we lost the meaning of love?\u00a0 It is becoming increasingly more difficult to argue that society today understands what love truly is.\u00a0 In a “me first” compulsive society we have defined love not by our own actions, but based on feelings or emotions oftentimes connected to how people treat us.\u00a0 This will by no means be a comprehensive look at the issue of love, but there is something I believe every Christian and most churches should look at in order to answer the question, am I truly showing love?<\/p>\n
Have you ever heard someone say, “I love Jesus but I don’t like the church?”\u00a0 Other than sounding completely ridiculous, this is impossible according to Scripture.\u00a0 First of all we see in 1 John 4:20, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?”\u00a0 The word “hate” hear means that we do not love our brother, not necessarily hate in the strongest sense of the word as we think of it.\u00a0 John is saying, “you can’t love God and not love your brother.”\u00a0 Why is this the case?\u00a0 Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.”\u00a0 Notice Christ loved the church so much that He gave His life for it.\u00a0 How can I possibly love God and hate something He thought was worth dying for?\u00a0 Godly love is not based on feelings or based on emotions.\u00a0 Rather godly love is based on an act of our will.\u00a0 In other words, I am choosing to love you and I will love you regardless of how you treat me.\u00a0 Obviously this form of love is very difficult because we are taught by society that it is all about us.\u00a0 The only way I can love my enemies is to choose to look past what they do to me or say about me.\u00a0 It is easy to love those who treat you nice or those who say they love you, but as Jesus said, “what are you doing any different from the lost?”\u00a0 If you were to come up to me and tell me I was handsome, it looked like I lost a lot of weight, and I was the best preacher you have ever heard of course I’m going to love you!\u00a0 But that wouldn’t prove anything.\u00a0 Now if I could pray for your and care about your soul when you tell me that was the worst sermon you have ever heard, then maybe I have achieved love for you.\u00a0 The bottom line is that if I truly love you, then your words and your actions will not affect my thoughts and actions towards you.\u00a0 That is God’s standard!\u00a0 No wonder many people walked away from Jesus according to John 6:66, this is hard.\u00a0 But thanks be to God who gives us the Holy Spirit to help us and gave us His Word that we may learn from Jesus’ example.<\/p>\n
By His grace and through His strength may we live for Him<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even though Valentine’s Day has come and gone I have been thinking about what is true love?\u00a0 Furthermore, how do I demonstrate true love in my life?\u00a0 In a culture where the word “love” gets tossed around like a football … Read More