PREAMBLE
First, we
should bear in mind that every believer is important to the Body and we are all
needed for the work. Every believer should discover His role in the Body and
run with it. Having seen many that have borne witness to the life of faith, we
should run our race. If God has put something in our hearts with respect to what
He will have us do, then it is just right that we keep focused on doing
it. We should lay aside every weight and
sin, anything that may distract us from this. Anything could be a weight, and
they could be legitimate or illegitimate. It could be a sleeping or eating
habit, a friend, a problem or even a relationship. Let us align our minds and
hearts to the race before us. The woman who recently won the 100 metres race at
the 2012 London Olympics did not even know she won until she saw the replay,
because she was fully focused on her race and never allowed any distraction to
hinder her from reaching her goal. Had she been distracted she would probably
have lost the race because she won by the narrowest of margins. We should
emulate this attitude in running the race set before us, keeping her eyes on
the focus without allowing anything to
distract us (Heb 12:1-2).
Second, James
stressed the importance of being slow to speak, swift to hear and slow to wrath
(James 1:19). We should cultivate an attitude of swiftness in hearing and
receiving the word of God. We should not be quick to commend or comment. We
should have a readiness to be receptive at all times.
MAIN
SERMON
Love is a
concept that is usually talked about, and celebrated, but in the actual sense greatly
misunderstood by so many people in our world today. There is a need for us to
understand what love is from a divine/biblical perspective. 1 Cor 13 gives us
tremendous insight into what love is from God’s perspective; while
simultaneously using the exercise of spiritual gifts as examples to underscore
how vital love is to our Christian faith. Love is very important to our Christian
faith. Love is so fundamental that if we manifest spiritual gifts of prophecy,
faith, giving, word knowledge, to an extreme or prodigious measure, without love as the underlying attitude or
motivation; then it would profit us nothing (1 Cor 13:1-3).
WHAT
IS LOVE?
In
the present age and time, a lot of people talk about love and we see very
little of it being shown. Also, one of the misconceptions people have is that
love equates to sex. So what is love?
Have we been walking in love? Have we been showing love to one another as God
commands us? If we check through the scripture we will see a lot of
commandments instructing us on love, how we should love
God with the
entirety of our being, and also on how we should walk in love one with another
(John 13:34-35,15:12-13,17,19, Rom 12:9-10,13:8-10, Gal 5:6,13-14,22,Eph 4:32,
Eph 5:2, Php 1:9,2:2, Col 2:2, 1 Thes 3:12,4:9, 5:8, 1 Tim 6:11, Heb
6:10,10:24, 13:1, 1 Pet 2:17, 3:8, 1 John 2:7-11, 1 John 3:1,11,14,16-18,23, 1
John 4:7-8,11-12,16,20-21,I John 5:2-3, 2 John 1:5-6. 1 Pet 1:22 is a good example where Peter
instructed believers to love one another with a pure heart FERVENTLY. The emphasis of the foregoing is FERVENTLY,
showing the depth of love we should display towards one another. Do we really
understand what biblical love is? But the question still remains – what is
love?
In Matt
22:35-38 Jesus described the concept
of love as the greatest of the commandments that was given to the Israelites.
In this portion of scriptures, Jesus, by calling it the greatest commandment
underscored its supreme importance. As Christians we need to have a good grasp
and understanding of love, we need to walk and act in it, we need to live our
lives by this very important principle and concept. Without love we amount to
nothing. 1 John 4:7 reiterates what has been said above and commands us to love
one another as practical proof that we are saved/born of God/believers. Apostle
John followed this up in 1 John 4:8 to categorically state that our failure to
practice love may well prove that we are not saved since God is love. Lest we
should not lose sight of what love is, we see that Apostle John gave us an
insight – GOD IS LOVE. If we have God
then we have love. All that God expressed towards humanity is love. 1 John 4:9
reveals that God’s love was manifested towards us by giving Jesus who died and
rose again, that we might live through Him.
Furthermore,
there is a need to dispel a commonly held notion that we must love as a form of
reciprocation, or that we need to love someone because the person loved us
first. This idea essentially is the attitude of the natural man who loves
conditionally, and because he is loved. However, the foregoing notion is
foreign to New Testament scriptures with respect to biblical love, the love God
displayed towards us, and the love He expects us to display towards others. We
see clearly from scriptures that we did not take the initiative by loving God
first before He had to respond; neither did He love us because He had to
reciprocate, rather He loved us first and that is the reason why we love Him (1
John 4:10, 19). Biblical love as demonstrated by God through the gift of His
Son demands that we love without expecting love back, or because someone loved
us first. God lavished His love on us through the death and the resurrection of
Christ and without any selfish motive because that is His nature. He did not
love us because he knew we were going to be fantastic ministers,
philanthropists or missionaries in the future; or because He knew we were going
to live up to our calling and exalted
position; rather He did it because love is His nature. God is love. Out of that
loving nature He offered Jesus as the solution to the
deepest need of
Man. All that God has done for us through Christ has been to benefit us, to
elevate us and make us better persons that can function victoriously on earth.
God
loved us and gave the greatest demonstration of that love when Christ died for
us on the Cross. It stands sure and steadfast and remains for eternity. He did
not love us because we loved Him first. We could never have loved God first
because we did not have the nature or capacity to have done so since all men
were dead in sins and alienated from God. The average man expects something
back in return when he loves, even if it is for that love to be
reciprocated. The things we do which we
call acts of love, are they really acts of love, or were they done with the
expectation of reciprocation? We should do them because God commanded us to do
so. God loved us without expecting back and He expects us to walk in love
towards one another. Jesus said we should love God with the entirety of our
being – with all our hearts, souls, and minds. This is the starting point (Mt
22:37). When we do this, it becomes easier to do the other aspect which Jesus
talked about – loving others (Mt 22:39). God loves us whether we respond or
not; whether we appreciate it or not; and whether we yield to it or not.
God
loved us and demonstrated that love through the sacrifice of Jesus (John 3:16).
We see here that God’s love involves sacrifice. Love requires sacrifice – a lot
of sacrifice at times; but not because we expect something in return. He freely
gave up Christ for our sakes because He loved us (Rom 8:32). We see from
scriptures all that His love brought us. It brought us deliverance from the
kingdom of darkness and translated us into God’s kingdom (Col 1:13). Because of
His love something happened to us in the realm of the spirit that changed us
radically that we had no contribution to. Because He loved us He made us
better, gave us the Holy Spirit, therefore empowering us so we can live a
triumphant life. What can we give in return to show appreciation for what He
has done for us? God expects us to love others in appreciation of the love He
demonstrated towards us.
God
has given us the capacity to love as He loved us (Rom 5:5) because we have His
nature within us (2 Pet 13). In John 15:13 Christ described how that the
ultimate demonstration of love was for a man to lay down His for His friends.
He did just that for us. He has impacted us eternally.
CONCLUSION
God
is love and we have been loved by Him. We do not need to place ourselves in a
position of pity or despair, because we are the recipients of His love. He has
loved us with a love that cannot be compared to any other. Our response to His
love should be to love Him with the entirety of our beings and to love one
another fervently.
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