27 Love
Love is an attitude that results in a desire to help someone deal with a problem or situation they cannot deal with by themselves.
It may result in emotions or feelings and is not done for personal gain or reward.
It is a reflection of the Love God has for us.
Love never does for a person what they should be doing for themselves and can do for themselves!
Four Greek words are used to describe 'love' In the New Testament but really, they only describe the way love can be expressed,
Jesus only spoke of one type of love Gods quality of love which we are commanded to show in John 13:34-35 which says:
Joh 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.
Joh 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
There is no escape clause that allows you to ignore these verses or parts of them in any way
Life is God’s training ground to teach us how to love as He Loves, to prepare us to be in heaven with for eternity where Love is the basic attitude all have.
Jesus said our obedience to Him should be out of Love for Him and not out of fear of punishment.
Our attitude to Love determines how we relate to others and how we express that relationship to them.
To God
We give Him Worship Glory Honour
We express it in Lordship and in holiness
In Stewardship
In imitating His Character
To Others:
We show respect and consideration
We carry out the Great Commission
We disciple them
We tell them of God’s Love for them, What He has done for them, is doing and will do for them.
To ourselves:
We respect our bodies
We discipline it and the flesh
We train our minds to think what God desires us to think (2 Cor 10:5)
We live a Godly life style
We continually develop the intimate personal relationship we have with each member of the Trinity
Love occurs because of something that happened to make you love that person
We love God because of what He has done for us is doing for us, is now for us and will do for us in the future.
We also love Him because He has adopted us into His Family as His spiritual Child which makes Jesus our spiritual step brother whom we love and whom we serve out of love and not fear of His Judgment.
God loves us as we are and not as we think we are or people say we should be.
We may not like what they do but they are still a child of the Father whom He loves and whom He loves we should love!
The Christian life expresses the love relationship we have with each member of The Trinity and we are told salvation is a result of this love relationships (Jn 17:3).