Love

(slide 5) If you will turn back in your Bible to Luke 15:2. Here we find Jesus old pals the Pharisees and Scribes. The words here are meant to discredit Jesus. It says: And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, “This Man receives sinners and eats with them.”

(slide 6) But if you look at it in the context of the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the progidal son, we see the reason Jesus was here. It is here that we discover His love was not just for the righteous but also for those demed unloveable. All of these stories were menat to teach us at the very heart of God is love, and that it continues to reach out for the lost and those who do not deserve it.

That is why Paul says that this type of love is kind. We cannot say we love someone when we treat them with unkindness. We cannot genuinley love someone when our mind is telling us they are unloveable. We can’t even truly love our sppouse and children untill we realize the way God loves us. That is what Paul is saying in verse 5, that our love must be tactifull and polite. And that goes for all of us. As you know I am very involved in politics and don’t mind sharing my opinion publicly in person or on social media. And from time to time I may come off a little harsh, but let me assure you that is never my intention.

(slide7) Verse six is actually something many of us struggle with. Here Paul is telling us not to rejoice when someone stumbles and falls. Sadly there are many people today that take pleasure when someone messes up and makes a mistake. We should think of it like this; rather than being glad about their bad, those who love have a way of excusing the faults of others, just like Jesus does with us.

As Christians we need to be carefull with verse sevan. Where it says believes all things, now, can be quite tricky, and Satan will use this to trip you up. Since God is love, and God is perfect we need to remind ourselves that He is not gullible. Since He loves us with everything about Him, He expects us to love the same.

And here is the tricky part. He loves the Homosexual so we love the Homosexual, he loves the teenager who is having sex outside the walls of marriage, so we love them also. He loves the thief, so we love the thief. But like God we do not accept or overlook the sin.

(slide 8) Now even though He loves them, they are still accountable for that sin. So as ambassadors of Christ we love them, we tell them of God’s love for them, but we never judge them, God will do that. We do not overlook their sin at all, but we still love them and in a loving way we show them God’s love and His impending judgment.

Another thing that verse seven can help us with, is that it can keep us from becoming discouraged. It is because of God’s never ending and unfailing love for us that we can keep moving forward. With His love being assured we know that what ever it is we are going through is not going to last forever, that there is a brighter day ahead.

Because of time I want to skip ahead to verse 13 where Paul writes: And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.