Learning Love

2/21/10 Learning Love

Mark 12:28-31; 1 John 4:7-11, 16-21

Men struggle with love and is the reason there are so many wars

Everyone has the capacity for love it is learning how to express/show it

1. Love is a God thing. (he is the originator) 1 John 4:7

-emotion (like a mother for her child)- comes from God

2. Love is proof of salvation (vs. 8)

-ex. in a Holiness Church proof of salvation was whether you were/looked holy

-salvation is all about love (vs. 9)

3. His love makes us love. (vs. 10-11)

4. We rely on his love (1 Corinth. 4- God judges based on our motives and not our actions)

5. We have to live in love (vs. 16)

-if I am in him and he lives in me then I have to live in what he is=love

6. Love is incomplete until you love someone else (vs. 17)

-if you love God and he loves you it is incomplete until it has passed between the two

of you to someone else

-gives us a confidence for our final resting place

-b/c God loved us in such an unlovable state we should be able to give that same love

to the most unlovable people

7. Loves moves fear (drives it out) (vs. 18)

-I'm a conduit to which love flows

-fear is based in punishment

8.Loving God=loving people (vs. 20-21)

-Matt. 22:36-40 (these 2 commandments are the big and little joker in a deck of cards

playing spades of course! To love God trumps all!

-and the challenge lies in loving someone the way that you want to be loved in that

same situation (i.e. tipping a waiter how you would want to be tipped if you were on

the other side of the table.