Longing for Love
John 15:12-15:12
Scripture (John 15:12)."Love each other as I have loved you"
There once was a very popular song, "Love Is a Many Splendored Thing."
The experience of many is that love is a many-splintered thing.
Human love fails!
A true story: A pastor tells that one day, a woman with a little girl at her side. This woman showed by the cast on her arm and some scars on the side of her face that she had been in the hospital. She said, "I was in the hospital because of a very serious fire. There were burns over two-thirds of my body. My husband walked into the hospital room, took one look at me, and said, ’You’re not the woman I married.’ " He left her to marry someone younger and more beautiful.
Human love says, "As long as you stimulate me, as long as I can be proud of you, as long as you’re beautiful, I can love you. If you change, my love for you changes."
Jesus Loves us as we are, it never changes.
Bob Weber, past president of Kiwanis International, told this story. He had spoken to a club in a small town and was spending the night with a farmer on the outskirts of the community. He had just relaxed on the front porch when a newsboy delivered the evening paper. The boy noted the sign Puppies for Sale. The boy got off his bike and said to the farmer, "How much do you want for the pups, mister?" "Twenty-five dollars, son." The boy’s face dropped. "Well, sir, could I at least see them anyway?" The farmer whistled, and in a moment the mother dog came bounding around the corner of the house tagged by four of the cute puppies, wagging their tails and yipping happily. At last, another pup came straggling around the house, dragging one hind leg. "What’s the matter with that puppy, mister?" the boy asked. "Well, Son, that puppy is crippled. We took her to the vet and the doctor took an X ray. The pup doesn’t have a hip joint and that leg will never be right." To the amazement of both men, the boy dropped the bike, reached for his collection bag and took out a fifty-cent piece. "Please, mister," the boy pleaded, "I want to buy that pup. I’ll pay you fifty cents every week until the twenty-five dollars is paid. Honest I will, mister." The farmer replied, "But, Son, you don’t seem to understand. That pup will never, never be able to run or jump. That pup is going to be a cripple forever. Why in the world would you want such a useless pup as that?"
The boy paused for a moment, then reached down and pulled up his pant leg, exposing that all too familiar iron brace and leather knee-strap holding a poor twisted leg. The boy answered, "Mister, that pup is going to need someone who understands him to help him in life!"
Crippled and disfigured by sin, the risen, living Christ has given us hope. He understands us--our temptations, our discouragement’s, and even our thoughts concerning death. By His love we have help in this life and hope for the life to come.
God offers sympathy & Love
What God Hath Promised
God hath not promised
Skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways
All our lives through;
God hath not promised
Sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow,
Peace without pain.
But God hath promised
Strength for the day,
Rest for the labor,
Light for the way,
Grace for the trials,
Help from above,
Unfailing sympathy,
Undying love.
—Annie Johnson Flint
Many, Many are longing for love.
A. Many are only living in a survival mode
In an interview Mother Teresa was contrasting the lives of the rich and the poor. Speaking of the rich she said, "The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread. The real poor know what is joy ... I find the rich much poorer. Sometimes they are more lonely inside."
B. The experience of many is that love is broken, crushed, twisted, and dried up
C. Empty lonely people are around
D. Who cares about me?
When wealth is lost, nothing is lost;
When health is lost, something is lost;
When love is lost, all is lost.
A greater way to Love
The Old Testament charge was to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Lev 19:18). But Jesus gave his disciples a new command with a radically different motive: "Love each other as I have loved you" (John 15:12).
We are healed by loving
We mature by loving
We have worth by loving
We are blessed by loving
We grow by loving
We fulfill every requirement by loving
1. Love them like they are.
Our calling and purpose as followers of Christ is to love God completely, to love self correctly, and to love others compassionately.
Kenneth Boa,
To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything and you heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to be sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness, but in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken, but it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The only place outside of heaven where you can be safe from all dangers of love is hell.
C.S. Lewis
The Woman at the well
The 10 unclean
The demonic
2. What it does:
It made you a child of God
It brings healing, wholeness, comfort, peace, victory, self worth,
3. Who it has changed.
ZACCHAEUS a 4 fold return beyond what was required of him
The woman who wiped her tears with here hair.
You here because someone loved you
We follow the example of those who touched, and continue to touch our lives
4. Love is a way of life
Looking with eyes of Love
In medieval times there was thought to be a fearful creature dwelling in caves and crevices called a "basilisk." It could kill people with just one look. Of course, we no longer believe such things, and so our expression is "if looks could kill." Looks cannot kill, but they can often wound. Looks can also heal, encourage, and comfort.
Say it in a way that they understand
Those to whom you minister may not always perfectly understand what you say, but they will soon know whether you love them or not.
The secret of many a successful Christian worker is not that he is skilled, has knowledge, and has endowments which are superior to others, but that those to whom he ministers know that he really cares about them, not in some abstract way, or from sense of duty, but wanting with all his heart the best that God wants for them.
Brokenness is the key
A humble loving heart is powerful in God’s hands
A mind that thinks others are better than ourselves is powerful in God’s hands
A soul that longs to love is powerful in God’s hands
5. Successful Love
Love will find a way!
Love never fails!
John 15:12)."Love each other as I have loved you"
As the boy understood the puppy’s needs,
Be like God who understands ours,
we can understand others
Edward Everett Hale’s pledge to the Lend-a-Hand Society
I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
and because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
