Looking for Love
We all are looking for love.
We know there’s a need for love.
We are creatures that need to be loved and need to show love.
Where can we find love? God is love.
If we know God is love, then all we need to do is turn to God, right?
It seems too easy but when you pray, He’s right there, wanting to love you!
He’s standing there with His arms open wide and why don’t we run into His arms?
How do we get closer to God? What keeps us from His love?
We build walls - Sin, Grumpy, Hate
Sin blocks us. It is a barrier a wall!
Grumpy Gus. - Grumpy people build walls. They want love but act like they don’t.
Perhaps they’ve been hurt and can’t see the thing they need to fix the hurt is love.
Break the hard heart.
Don’t let your love grow cold.
Matthew 24:10-13
10 At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11 and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12 Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13 but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
Deceived
Satan wants to deceive you that God doesn’t like you or doesn’t love you.
God doesn’t love you because you’re pretty.
God doesn’t love you because you have money or are successful.
God just loves you.
How do you know? The Bible tells you so.
John 3:16
I can’t love Him because He doesn’t love me? Wrong
We love Him because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved us.
James 4:8 Come near to God and he will come near to you.
Turning to the world instead of turning to God. / Unwillingness
Friends with the world is enmity towards God.
Matthew 23:37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.
How do we show love back to God?
If you love me keep my commandments
Do you love God, or Do you hate God?
If you love someone, you do good to them, not bad to them.
If you love your Master in heaven, you do what He asks, it’s that simple.
John 14:15 “If you love me, keep my commands.
To love God you also have to Love one another
You can’t love God if you hate those around you.
1 John 4:7-21
God’s Love and Ours
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. 13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
John 13:34,35 34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Conclusion
Hebrews 10:19-25
19 Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25 not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Are you looking for love in the all the wrong places?
He has His arms open wide - why do you tarry and not run into His arms of love?
Don’t let your love grow cold - don’t turn into a grumpy Gus.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Turn to Jesus. Closer to Thee.
Run into His arms of Love right now! Tell Him you love Him, you know He loves you too!
