What Is A Family Part 3 Series

What is a Family

Third in the series

What is Love?

We have covered both the male and female roles in a marriage or relationship. We also touched a little on love. I, however, have been directed to teach in alittle more detail on love here. Love, as we see it, is usually an emotional feeling down in the heart. I want to take this to the next step. I want to define love so there is no misunderstanding. There is, in our minds, several types of love. There is the love we have for our partner, children, parents, family, friends and God. I am sure we have other types of love also. We state that we love a certain food, our vehicle, a sport, our pets and many more. This sermon is going to teach you what love is and how we are to love.

I am going to start with 1 John 4:18

18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

I am starting here for a reason. You need to understand that there is not to be any fear in love. Perfected love casts out all fears. What is perfect love? Perfect love is a love that is deeper than just in the heart. It is a love that not only is felt, but that one has submitted the mind to also. God submitted Himself to love us even as sinners. His submission was so great that He sent His only begotten Son to die for us. Something I must point out, Jesus did not die for the saved or the believer, He died for the lost, for the sinner. The pain and grief that accompanied the sending of Christ can only be imagined by us.

I can tell you from watching my Mother, as she had to let my sister go to be with the Lord, the pain was almost unbearable. I would have to say that the pain that God felt was the same. How deep is that love? It is a love so deep that you can submit yourself to the pain and grief of allowing your own child to die. This is a perfect love in my mind. It is a love so deep and so pure that it is not just a subconscience act of a heart. It is a deep committed decision done through willingly submitting your mind to this love.

So what is love? Love is a commitment to submit to another. Again, let me point out, it is a Godly submission that I am talking about here. It is a submission of service not one of domination. I am going to try to go very slow here in this message. It is very important that we all understand how to love. If you never learn how to love then you will never truly experience perfect love. It can be a love so deep and so pure it casts out all fears. It can be a love that allows you to be completely submitted to another. I also want to take a little closer look at some things that prevent this love from developing. I have written on restoration through forgiveness, and I have decided that I need to cover alittle about this here.

Most, if not all, of us have things in our past that seem to be holding us back. Many times we offer an apology and even ask for forgiveness. Something that I have learned through God’s great wisdom is that it is just as important for us to forgive ourselves. You see, when we confess our sins, God doesn’t just forgive them He wipes them out. This is what we must do also. Let me try to help a little here. The first thing we must do is own our past mistakes. Stop laying blame elsewhere and making excuses. As long as we continue to lay blame and make excuses we will never learn or feel perfect love. You have to be able to love yourself before you can love another.

Though it may be difficult to do, we need to ask God for forgiveness, give the past sins and wrongs to Him, and let them go from ourselves. You will find that once you have done that, you will truly be open to a love like you have never experienced before. It is a love that is so complete that you will never feel fear. So the first step to loving another is to love yourself. You can do this little thing. You may need to write the things down. Make your own list of the past sins that you carry with you today. I know it is hard, I did this. After you have your list written down, go to prayer. Confess each one, but take it one step farther. Do not just confess, surrender it to God. Make sure you check each one off as you do this. Once this is done, then you need to let them go from yourself. Now remember, you just surrendered them to God. He has taken them and lifted them from your shoulders. He now has the burden, so give it to Him completely.