Message topic: Can the love of God be seen in you?
Scripture: 1st. Corinthians 13: 4-7
I believe that one of the most misunderstood word people use in our language is the word love: are there any ways that we can learn the true meaning of the word love? How does God’s love differ from the world’s definition of love?
We often hear people talk about showing love to others; The saying is, all we need is love; many people believe they know what love is like; when they are really living by certain feelings that they call love. Everyone wants to be loved and most people want to love others in return.
However, do we really know what love is? The Bible speaks many times about love, and what it is; so let us look at a biblical definition of love and see in what way it is different from its worldly counterpart.
We know that God’s love is steadfast and unmovable.
The apostle Paul writing to the Roman Christians assures us; in Romans 8: 38, in these words: for I am persuaded, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God’s love is sure, God loves us whether we respond to him in love or not. His love for us is not based on our response, but on his character. The bible says in (1ST. John 4: 8, and 16) that God is love. His personality is pure love.
Now this does not mean that because God love everyone, people do not have any responsibility to respond to His love. What it means is that God is always ready to wrap us in his loving arms when we turn to him in repentance and faith.
Many times, worldly love is fickle: those who claim they love us are there during the good times, but are conspicuously absent when the going gets rough. God will not leave us in the tough times. Jesus’s promise is, I will never leave you nor forsake you. (Hebrews 13: 5). God’s love is personal.
There is no comparison with God’s love and the love of men who have not had an experience with Christ Jesus: the love of God is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoice with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hope all things, endures all things. (1st. Corinthians 13:4-7) this is God’s love and it is this type of love that God would have us show to others.
We know that God is pure love, and He made mankind in his own image and likeness, then he put His own breath in us and set us apart from all his other creations, that is why when mankind disobeyed and lost communication with him, he sent a rescue mission to earth.
That rescue mission is recorded for us in (John 3: 16-17) which says for God so love the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him, might be saved.
God does not only select the beautiful people, he does not seek the rich people, God seek whosoever will come and follow him.
We are to love one another as God loves us, we are also encouraged to love those who make themselves our enemies.
Jesus demonstrated to us how we are to love our enemies in that while those who made themselves his enemies, while on the cross He was praying to his father asking that he would forgive them for what they were doing to him unknowingly.
Mankind today cannot comprehend the loss mankind suffered when Adam disobeyed the command of God and lost the first love of God for mankind.
We are happy to know that God’s words never change, and they are the same today as they have been from the beginning.
We were born in this world and obtain this world’s love, but we have heard the call of Jesus and accepted his love which he gives to all who respond to his call, have you hidden your new love under the bushel, or are you holding it as a light so that all can see?
Having the spirit of Christ in us, we are supposed to be Christlike. Can people see Christ in us through our words and action wherever we are and in what-ever we are doing?
We are in the time of year when we hear many house-wives giving recipes for their delicacies. Do you have a recipe for your love?
Did you know that there is a true recipe for God’s love?
I believe that the apostle Paul speaks more about love of God than any other gospel writer, so let’s see if he did leave any recipe of God’s love for us in his writings.
I do believe that we can certainly call 1st. Corinthians chapter 13, the recipe for God’s love, let us listen to what it says and remind ourselves that it is available to us at all times.
It begins with these words; though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not love (which means charity) I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal; 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, and have not love, (charity) I am nothing.
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though give my body to be burned, and have not love (charity), it profit me nothing. Love (Charity) suffer long, and is kind, love (charity) does not envy, love does not vaunt itself, is not puffed up.
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil, rejoice not in iniquity, but rejoice in the truth. It bears all things, believe all things, hope all things, endures all things.
Love never fails, but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease, whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. Now as children of God, we do have the receipt for his love to abide in us forever. How much of God’s love do we display in our daily walk among our fellow men?