Love is a blessing for humanity from God. Can we love everyone like God? But we observe that we do not. But how is it possible for us to begin to love and treat everyone with love? Love, is one powerful 4 letter word! While you might find temporary fulfillment of love through people and material things, there is no true fulfillment in life without the love of God.
We can't earn it, buy it, or win it.
The Bible says we are to love one another. Sounds good, but can we do it? Whoever said, "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand," was about right.
How do we make love a dominating characteristic of our lives?
Even though we have the freedom to set our own priorities, Jesus made a point of defining certain ones of them for us: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-39). Love, then, is not a gray area the Scriptures. Jesus gave love priority over all other Christian virtues. Every thought, response, and act of goodwill must first pass through the fine filter of love, or it means nothing at all.
When Jesus spoke to the disciples regarding the first and second greatest commands, he explained that "All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands". (Matthew 22:40).
When we demonstrate Christian love, it distinguishes believers from the rest of the world. Jesus goes on to say, "By this [love] all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Notice Jesus did not say that people will know that you are my disciples if you promote my agenda, or wear Christian T-shirts or a Christian bracelet, or have a fish decal on your car, but rather if you love one another.
How do we demonstrate the distinctiveness of Christian love? Because virtue is moral action we practice, How can we practice the glorious virtue of love?
I read Gary Chapman’s bestseller The Five Love Languages. Chapman argues that people communicate love differently, that each person has a natural and distinct way in which he or she gives and/or receives love. Physical affection, verbal expression, acts of service, providing, giving gifts, opening opportunities, and spending time are some of the common love languages.
I suggest we can come to a passage such as John 3:16 and leave it without understanding the love of God, because we don’t know God’s love language. We listen to John 3:16 to hear about the fact of God’s love, but the verse speaks to us about the manner of God’s love. The truth of God love is hidden with the nature of God’s love. So you cannot really know that God loves you until you know how God loves you. You can live under a dark cloud of divine abandonment while the light of John 3:16 shines the light of God’s love in your face if you do not know how God communicates His love for you.
John 3:16 declares God is a lover.
The Old Testament makes it clear God loves Israel. It makes this point so regularly and dramatically that you can misread it to say God loves only Israel. That’s how Israel itself read the Old Testament. So this statement recorded in John 3:16 absolutely must have blown Nicodemus away. It claims God does not love just certain groups, races or nations. God loves everybody. God doesn’t exclusively love Christians. God loves the world. What a truth!
God loves the world. Yet we still misunderstand the love of God if you don’t know how God communicates His love. The text bears me up. The verse does not simply say God loved the world. It says, “God so loved the world.” That little word so (houto) means “in this manner.” Our English translations obscure this term somewhat: “God loved the world so much,” but it literally speaks of how God loved us, not how much God loves us. The message of the text is this: “In this manner God loved the world” or “This is how God loved the world.”
John 3:16 is about how God says, “I love you.” What’s the answer? Here it is: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son.
The good news is, He does not love you because of who you are anyway, I mean think about it, at our best.... our garments are as filthy rags!
if He loved us because of who we and what we truly are, would He even want to love us?
How many times have you heard people say, well he's just not the man or woman that I fell in love with and married,
Chances are, he or she was always that person, they just saved the informal introduction, for after the honeymoon.
You see, God knows the real you before the relationship ever starts and He loves and accepts you just the way you are, for who you are.
His Love isn’t based on our actions or deeds!
Thank God, that He loves us, because of who He is and not because of who we are!
We can find sweet rest in that very fact, His Love for us, is based on His Love alone and has nothing to do with us!
His love for us, is what makes His grace towards us possible
God loved us, long before we ever loved Him, He loved us before we ever were anything at all
and nothing can ever change His mind about Loving us, He is the only constant we can depend on, He never changes! Amen!
In other words, there is nobody like Jesus. Nobody was born like Jesus. Nobody lived like Jesus. Nobody died like Jesus. Nobody got up like Jesus. Nobody is coming again like Jesus. Jesus is God’s only Son. When John 3:16 says God loved us by giving His only begotten Son, it is telling us Jesus Christ is what God sent when He cared enough to send the very best. How did God say I love you? He gave His only begotten Son.
He who had glory before the world began, came down from glory…down from the heights of divinity to the depths of humanity.
Jesus knows everything about us, the past, the present and the future, in other words all of the ugly and He loves us still. That fact alone, is more than enough reason for His Grace to be called Amazing! That’s why there is complete rest in Gods love, you don’t have to act, or pretend to be something, or someone everyone will like,
When it comes to God, you can be yourself and He will still Love you, just the way you are!
After all He made you, there's no one knows you better than God knows you! You don't have to change yourself before you come to know Him, because once you come to know Him, the more you will change.
Automatically because you know Him, without even trying!
It's not about right living, it's all about right believing! It's not about what you're capable of, it's all about what He's capable of!
Think about Jesus. He left the glory of heaven to come to earth. He veiled His divinity and took on humanity. And what did it get him? "He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him" (John 1:11). Can you imagine being away on a business trip for a week, coming home, and your family not recognizing you? That's similar to what Jesus experienced when he came to earth. Surely that must have hurt. Then, as Jesus hung on the cross, dying for these people that he loved, they hurled abuses, scorn, and ridicule. His heart was broken. And yet, He forgave them.
I know God loves me because I know He gave His only begotten Son—Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians 9:15 says, “Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift!”
You only can be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. If you believe in Him, you will have eternal life. Eternal life begins the moment you put your trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. It introduces you to a new quality of life. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” If you are a believer, you have eternal life right now.
When we are new new creation we will start Loving others like God. God will help you to establish His testimony.
When we are weak; He send His Spirit to make us strong, all we need to do is call to Him. The Holy Spirit has the power to change us and help us to become a new man or women.
God bless you all through today's sermon.
We can't earn it, buy it, or win it.
The Bible says we are to love one another. Sounds good, but can we do it? Whoever said, "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand," was about right.
How do we make love a dominating characteristic of our lives?
Even though we have the freedom to set our own priorities, Jesus made a point of defining certain ones of them for us: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-39). Love, then, is not a gray area the Scriptures. Jesus gave love priority over all other Christian virtues. Every thought, response, and act of goodwill must first pass through the fine filter of love, or it means nothing at all.
When Jesus spoke to the disciples regarding the first and second greatest commands, he explained that "All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands". (Matthew 22:40).
When we demonstrate Christian love, it distinguishes believers from the rest of the world. Jesus goes on to say, "By this [love] all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). Notice Jesus did not say that people will know that you are my disciples if you promote my agenda, or wear Christian T-shirts or a Christian bracelet, or have a fish decal on your car, but rather if you love one another.
How do we demonstrate the distinctiveness of Christian love? Because virtue is moral action we practice, How can we practice the glorious virtue of love?
I read Gary Chapman’s bestseller The Five Love Languages. Chapman argues that people communicate love differently, that each person has a natural and distinct way in which he or she gives and/or receives love. Physical affection, verbal expression, acts of service, providing, giving gifts, opening opportunities, and spending time are some of the common love languages.
I suggest we can come to a passage such as John 3:16 and leave it without understanding the love of God, because we don’t know God’s love language. We listen to John 3:16 to hear about the fact of God’s love, but the verse speaks to us about the manner of God’s love. The truth of God love is hidden with the nature of God’s love. So you cannot really know that God loves you until you know how God loves you. You can live under a dark cloud of divine abandonment while the light of John 3:16 shines the light of God’s love in your face if you do not know how God communicates His love for you.
John 3:16 declares God is a lover.
The Old Testament makes it clear God loves Israel. It makes this point so regularly and dramatically that you can misread it to say God loves only Israel. That’s how Israel itself read the Old Testament. So this statement recorded in John 3:16 absolutely must have blown Nicodemus away. It claims God does not love just certain groups, races or nations. God loves everybody. God doesn’t exclusively love Christians. God loves the world. What a truth!
God loves the world. Yet we still misunderstand the love of God if you don’t know how God communicates His love. The text bears me up. The verse does not simply say God loved the world. It says, “God so loved the world.” That little word so (houto) means “in this manner.” Our English translations obscure this term somewhat: “God loved the world so much,” but it literally speaks of how God loved us, not how much God loves us. The message of the text is this: “In this manner God loved the world” or “This is how God loved the world.”
John 3:16 is about how God says, “I love you.” What’s the answer? Here it is: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son.
The good news is, He does not love you because of who you are anyway, I mean think about it, at our best.... our garments are as filthy rags!
if He loved us because of who we and what we truly are, would He even want to love us?
How many times have you heard people say, well he's just not the man or woman that I fell in love with and married,
Chances are, he or she was always that person, they just saved the informal introduction, for after the honeymoon.
You see, God knows the real you before the relationship ever starts and He loves and accepts you just the way you are, for who you are.
His Love isn’t based on our actions or deeds!
Thank God, that He loves us, because of who He is and not because of who we are!
We can find sweet rest in that very fact, His Love for us, is based on His Love alone and has nothing to do with us!
His love for us, is what makes His grace towards us possible
God loved us, long before we ever loved Him, He loved us before we ever were anything at all
and nothing can ever change His mind about Loving us, He is the only constant we can depend on, He never changes! Amen!
In other words, there is nobody like Jesus. Nobody was born like Jesus. Nobody lived like Jesus. Nobody died like Jesus. Nobody got up like Jesus. Nobody is coming again like Jesus. Jesus is God’s only Son. When John 3:16 says God loved us by giving His only begotten Son, it is telling us Jesus Christ is what God sent when He cared enough to send the very best. How did God say I love you? He gave His only begotten Son.
He who had glory before the world began, came down from glory…down from the heights of divinity to the depths of humanity.
Jesus knows everything about us, the past, the present and the future, in other words all of the ugly and He loves us still. That fact alone, is more than enough reason for His Grace to be called Amazing! That’s why there is complete rest in Gods love, you don’t have to act, or pretend to be something, or someone everyone will like,
When it comes to God, you can be yourself and He will still Love you, just the way you are!
After all He made you, there's no one knows you better than God knows you! You don't have to change yourself before you come to know Him, because once you come to know Him, the more you will change.
Automatically because you know Him, without even trying!
It's not about right living, it's all about right believing! It's not about what you're capable of, it's all about what He's capable of!
Think about Jesus. He left the glory of heaven to come to earth. He veiled His divinity and took on humanity. And what did it get him? "He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him" (John 1:11). Can you imagine being away on a business trip for a week, coming home, and your family not recognizing you? That's similar to what Jesus experienced when he came to earth. Surely that must have hurt. Then, as Jesus hung on the cross, dying for these people that he loved, they hurled abuses, scorn, and ridicule. His heart was broken. And yet, He forgave them.
I know God loves me because I know He gave His only begotten Son—Jesus Christ. Second Corinthians 9:15 says, “Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift!”
You only can be saved through faith in Jesus Christ. If you believe in Him, you will have eternal life. Eternal life begins the moment you put your trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. It introduces you to a new quality of life. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” If you are a believer, you have eternal life right now.
When we are new new creation we will start Loving others like God. God will help you to establish His testimony.
When we are weak; He send His Spirit to make us strong, all we need to do is call to Him. The Holy Spirit has the power to change us and help us to become a new man or women.
God bless you all through today's sermon.
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