Do we possess a Love worth having!
Turn on the TV or open the closest social media channel and you will see and hear things that if put into one word would describe: hatred, division, accusation, racism, antagonism, confrontation. This is what our world is demonstrating and propagating with our young people and our society as a whole. Everywhere you turn attitudes of everything dark and negative and most of all evil are being feed to us like a hungry monster that only gets more of an insatiable appetite the more it is feed. There are people in our mist that look for and pounce on opportunities to create confusion and chaos among the society.
Unfortunately, the church today is not immune to this dreadful disease. The church. Has very much the same. Problems the same darkness. The same negativity in it today. As our society does around us. Many people today want to put labels on others, calling them liberal or progressive or conservative or traditional or whatever else they may want to label someone. But the label that the Church today should be concerned about having is being Christlike, being Christian.
The church today is being plagued with hatred. Division accusation. Insinuation. Antagonism and confrontation just like any other group of people. And that is a shame. The enemy is attacking the church from every angle and from every Ave. possible. Trying to infiltrate the church with that dark and negative components that Breed These evil attitudes. There are forces trying to divide the church and split the church and to conquer the church. But I know this. That our Jesus, our King Has said that the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church. But that does not mean that we do not have a fight and that we do not have a fight in front of us. We do.
If the church also had a word. That could define and describe who we are and what we are. Then that word should be. Love. Love for God with all our minds, our hearts, our bodies. But also love for our neighbors as we love ourselves. Do you possess this love worth having?
unfortunately, that is not always the case. Carnality Gets into and seeps into the fabric of the church.
Gets into the Framework of the church and distorts the church and the body to a point that people don't always see love.
Paul knew this very well. He wrote a letter to a church that he had planted that he had set up in Corinth. And he wrote a letter because the church in Corinth was deviating away from what he had taught them, and how he had set them up. Immorality, had creeped into their congregation, and they were being like the society that was around them, which was Pagan and worshipped other gods and practiced immoralities that Should not have been in the church.
They were listening to false teachers that were directing them an taking them down the wrong path and deviating away from the teachings of Christ. Plus everything that Paul taught them about living a distinct life and what this Christian life involves. There was much division in the church. They were bringing lawsuits against each other and there were fights, and arguments and hatred. They were arguing about who held higher position in the church and who was ranked higher than the other person and who had the greater gifts than another people. Paul was saying man, enough is enough, that you're not supposed to be acting like this that you're supposed to be Examples to the world and not part of the world. And this is not the way you're supposed to act amongst each other let alone to the ones that are not believers. Your acting like children with no discipline, like spoiled brats. So, he starts off in Chapter 12. Verse 31. And he says, but now let me show you a way of life that is better Than all. NKJV says, I show you a more excellent way.
READ 1 COR 13
Paul knows and Paul shows that Love is not only central, it’s the absolute blood that circulates to the body of Christ. Without the blood of love, there is no life in the body. And That a dead body is nothing more than a corpse in a whitewashed tomb. Dead, dry, and lifeless (Loveless)
13:1-3 Love is enriching. …But have not love…
13:4-7 Love is edifying…does not…does rejoice, bear, believes, hopes, and endures (notice the struggle)
13:8-13 Love is enduring…And now abide (these three remain): Faith Hope and Love. And the greatest Love. The most powerful, the most dynamic, and the most important!
Last week we talked about what was in your heart would come out in your speaking and your actions.
What you must get in your heart is the love of Christ which is the pure reflection of the Father Who is love. God is Love, and His love is very different from human love. God's love is unconditional, and it's not based on feelings or emotions. He doesn't love us because we're lovable or because we make Him feel good; He loves us because He is love. He created us to have a loving relationship with Him, and He sacrificed His own Son to restore that relationship.
We have all sinned and deserve God's judgment. God, the Father, sent His only Son to satisfy that judgment for those who believe in Him. Jesus, the creator, and eternal Son of God, who lived a sinless life, loves us so much that He died for our sins, taking the punishment that we deserve, was buried, and rose from the dead according to the Bible. If you truly believe and trust this in your heart, receiving Jesus alone as your Savior, declaring, "Jesus is Lord," you will be saved from judgment and spend eternity with God in heaven.
What is your response? You too can possess a love worth having?
