Last week we started a series called “How to improve your Love life” our scripture was 1st Corinthians 13 and we talked about what love isn’t and what love is. So why do we need to improve our love life? I believe the way we love goes hand in hand with our salvation.
Lets look at a question that was posed to Jesus , the response he received and what he said about the answer.
Luke 10:25-28
This verse is a quotation from two books of the Old Testament Deut. 6:5 tells the people to Love God and Leviticus 19:18 Tells people to love their neighbor ,all the other Laws , 613 Mitsvot’s or Commandments are summed up in these two laws.
So let’s start out with the first and foremost commandment loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. What does this mean?
It means that we are commanded to love God with every fiber of our being, it means that we must put God first in our life and first in everything we do, 24/7/365 should be about pleasing God and following his direction.
Lets be Honest, we all fail miserably, most of us spend a life consumed with satisfying ourselves and not satisfying God. The truth is in these natural bodies, in these bodies made of flesh and blood we cannot ever be perfect in following this commandment, that’s why God sent Jesus because evry day we fall short, evry day we miss the Mark. I’m not saying this is our fault but we just cant love enough on our own, but with Jesus we can work toward this lofty goal, we can get better and better each day.
Lets look at how to improve our love life in this aspect.
In order to begin loving God we need to love ourselves. We need to quit moping around thinking o poor pitiful me, nobody loves me. I want to tell you today we must realize that God loves us, He loves us more than anything else. God loves us even before we loved Him.
When we begin to realize that God loves us despite our faults, despite our shortcomings, despite how dirty and nasty we think we are. When we realize that he loves us no matter what that’s when we begin to improve in our love toward God.
Now the next step we are commanded about love is the hard one, lets face it , its pretty easy to love God, but sometimes its not so easy to love your neighbor and we have been called to love them as much as we love ourselves.
Now let me tell you, we love ourselves a lot …. Don’t we, nothing but the best for us filet mignon and cavier. Lets face it we as a nation, we as a church we treat ourselves good, because we love us.
So why don’t we love those around us as much as we love ourselves? Oh we say we love everybody but do we show it by our actions. When we help someone out do we do it freely with a willing heart or do we do it not judging or wondering what will be done with the gift we give.
The truth is if we cant possibly love God with all our being we are going to have trouble with loving our neighbor. Its hard and the only way we can love our neighbors as much as we love us is with Jesus Christ in our hearts. The only way that we can love like we should is through Christ.
Lets be honest we don’t love God as we should and we don’t love people as we should that’s why we need Christ working in us so that we can do better.
Here is something that might help us love our neighbors, we must realize that God loves them just as much as he loves us. In His eyes we are all the same, not only does he love me and you he loves them to.
So we can all get better at love cant we, we can all work toward improving our love life once we realize that God loves us regardless of what we do.
Loving God may be easy , loving your neighbor may be easy but let me read you the standard that Jesus has set for us.
Luke 6:27-36New International Version (NIV)
27 “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. 29 If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. 30 Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.
What??? Love my enemy, give them my shirt!!! Pray for them??? Makes you want to say “What you talkin bout Jesus?”
We have been called to be different , we are Christians and we are called to high standards by our savior.
32 “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. 33 And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. 34 And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. 35 But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. 36 Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
I want to share a personal story with you that has helped me learn to love better. When I was younger and Becky and I were just starting out we were struggling to make ends meet, we were eating 4 for a $1 Macaroni and cheese for every meal, we couldn't hardly afford gas, and we needed a house and had no way of borrowing the money to buy one. But God must have had his eye on us, there was a retired fireman that used to come by the firehouse I was assigned to and eat lunch with us about twice a month and he heard that I was in need of a home well he stopped by one day and said that he had a rental that had become vacant and wondered if I would like to look at it and maybe purchase it from him. Well me and my wife took the grand tour of this 900 square foot mansion and fell in love with it. We explained to him that we had no money and no credit, he smiled and said "no problem" I'll finance it for you and you can pay me $200 a month. We agreed and met at the lawyers office to draw up the proper papers. This man loved enough to take a chance on us even though we had known each other only a short while. But here's the kicker, here's where the love really comes in, every month when I would go by his house to make a payment the first thing he would ask me was if I needed the money for something else and if I did I could just pay him later. This man and his wife have become lifelong friends, he financed my construction loan when I built a new 2500 square foot house 15 years ago, and to this day even though he is close to 80 if I called him and needed anything he would gladly give.
I try and love like he and his wife love and when I am asked to give, or asked to put it all out there for someone I look back and remember what others have done for me.
You can never win souls for the kingdom by retaliating, we cannot bear a good witness if we hold grudges, if we give back evil for evil, or wrong for wrong.
We are called to be better than that. Here's what we can do to improve our love lives
Realize that God really loves us, realize that he loves everyone else just the same as he loves you.
Pray , read your bible, turn the other cheek, quit wondering if the person you helped is scamming you. We must love as we have been called today regardless of what our worldly mind says.
Love God, Love neighbor it all starts by loving yourself and realizing that you are loved by The Most High
