Today we begin a new message series which I’ve entitled “God’s Power For Your Relationships.” We’re going to look at how God’s power can help you with your relationships. Quite frankly, relationships are what life is all about. Relationships with family, with relatives, with neighbors, with co-workers, with people at church. Relationships can make life wonderful or miserable. We need God’s power to help our relationships be everything that God intended.
Today, my first message in this series is called “Learning To Love” Do you remember the first time you fell in love? Might have been in middle school or high school, perhaps you noticed someone in class. But it was more than just noticing someone, you had feelings when you looked at them and when you talked to them. You thought, this must be what love is all about, this mysterious feeling that I’ve fallen into.
The fact is that love is not just a feeling. When the Bible talks about love it most often uses a Greek word agape. Agape means to make a choice to appreciate and act in the best interests of someone else. It is used both for loving God and for loving people. Love is much more than a feeling, love is much more than words, love is a choice. Love is a choice to do the right thing for someone else even if the feelings are not there. This God-kind of love applies to everyone of your relationships.
How can we learn about love? The best way is to learn from the person who invented love God Himself. Jesus did a lot of teaching about love. Jesus did a lot of demonstrating what love was all about. Jesus showed us what love is through His life and through His death. We need to learn from Jesus what love is all about. NLT 1 John 4:19 We love each other as a result of His loving us first. Jesus loved us first so we can truly love one another. Not just when we feel like it, but with the kind of love God has for us, agape love. That is the kind of love that will build the strong relationships that God wants us to have in our lives
Today we’re going to look at some of Jesus’ teaching about love. One day an expert in the Jewish law asked Jesus what he had to do to receive eternal life. Jesus asked him what the Bible said? NLT Luke 10:27-28 The man answered, “`You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, `Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” “Right!” Jesus told him. “Do this and you will live!” These verses are called the Great Commandment. They have two parts, loving God and loving people. The man asked Jesus who his neighbor was, the neighbor that he was supposed to love as himself and Jesus answered with a story.
To hear more about this topic, listen to my April 15, 2007 message entitled Learning To Love