... About Love

I am on a rotating schedule to lead prayer meeting at my church on Wednesday evenings.  The leader gives a short message.  On February 3rd, I led the prayer meeting.  Below is a copy of my notes of the message I presented that evening.  All Scripture is taken from the New International Version of the Bible.

Prayer Meeting - Wednesday, February 3,2016 - LOVE

With Valentine's Day just a couple of weeks away, I've been thinking about love

All of us want to be loved
What the world needs now is love, sweet love  It's the only thing that there's just too little of - 1965 popular song with lyrics by Hal David

à Love of God

·  God is Love - 1 John 4:16

The very essences of God is love - just as God is Holy; God is Righteous, God is gracious and compassionate, God is mighty, God is good, God is sovereign, God is merciful and forgiving, 

·  Fruit of the Spirit is Love - Gal 5:22

Fruit of the Spirit is Love, joy, peace….

In a couple of prior Wed night services, I spoke about joy - One component of the Fruit of the Spirit is joy, another is love, God wants us to be filled and overflowing with His love, When we yield to the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we will begin to bear the Fruit of the Spirit.  Are we filled with His love?

·  So great is his unfailing love - Lam 3:32

Some of the saddest words - “I  don’t love you any more.”

St Paul wrote that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” Rom. 8:38-39 - We will never heard God say, “I  don’t love you any more.”
God keeps His promises - People may fail us but God doesn’t - Because of His love, He wanted not one to parish; so He sent His son to die for us to provide salvation

·  what great love the Father has lavished on us, - 1 John 3:1 (lavished - generous, abundant, sumptuous, bountiful)

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him -1 John 3:1

God has created us but we do not become children of God until we believe on His son, Jesus.  Once we become His child, we take on His characteristics -

When I first saw my daughter, Amy after she was born I said to her, "You look just like your daddy."  I has been fun watching her grow and seeing how much she is like him.

My Mother tells me I am a lot like my father and I have to agree.

So if God is love, are we “love”?

· ...so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:23

Here John records one of Jesus prayers - Jesus wanted all believers to be brought to complete unity and why - so that the world would know that God loved them - Is there unity among us - at the general church level, at the local level? Does the world know that God loves them?  What are we doing so that they will know?

· ... to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Eph 3:18-19

We sang the song The Love of God - It goes beyond the highest star, And reaches to the lowest hell;

Filled to the measure of all the fullness of God - For something to be filled, it must be empty - we need to be empty of self and selfish desires -

à Love for God

·  what does the Lord your God ask of you but ... to love  him, Deuteronomy 10:12a

·  Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart & with all your soul & with all your mind.’ Mat 22:37

Love: A Holy Command - by Oswald Chambers ----

We looked at the prayer of St. Paul (above Ephesians 3:18-19) Here is what is written to the Church in Ephesus  in Revelations  - You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary. Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. (Rev 2:3-4)

Relationships - Husband and wife
Personal Relationship with God - spending time with Him - reading His Word - What is He saying to me?
Hearing sermons - what is in it for me? - God knows who is going to hear the message

à Love Because of God

·  Do  Everything in Love - 1 Cor 16:4

Everything? _ Before you speak THINK -

·  Christ’s love compels us -2 Cor 5:14

Compels - a driving force - must do it

·  We love because He first loved us - 1 John 4:19

Earlier I stated we take on His characteristics

·  Love one another deeply - 1 Pet 1:26   

Deeply -

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Philippians 2:3-4
Book - What would Jesus Do?
I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13
I prayed and asked God to love others as He loves - to forgive, etc.

Atlantic Ocean – Photo by Lela

        The Love of God
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky
                                      - Frederick M. Lehman