Sunday, March 20, 2011

Love Made Complete

The text for today's sermon is found in 1 John 4:7-12

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

There are five points about love in this passage that are important for our lives.

1. Love comes from God (vs 7)
We need to understand that God is author of love. It begins in Him and ends in Him. There is no real love outside of God.

2. God is love (vs 8)
God's very nature is love.

3. God calls us to love each other (vs 7 & 11)
Love is not only the expectation of Christianity it is the reality of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. It is cause and effect.

4. If we do not love, we do not know God (vs 8)
Since it is the natural outcome of a heart and life given to Christ, if love is missing then the relationship is missing

5. God showed His love through Jesus (vs 9)
The proof of God's love for us is Jesus
What does our life prove about God? Does it prove that God is love, does it prove the life changing reality of Jesus Christ.
Thought For Today
Love is not so much a goal as an outcome.
Love is the result of Christ within

Just Connie

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