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love others


 

There is a reason to love like God loves.  He made us to know His love and share it with others.  But how do we know what loves looks and acts like?  How do we know why we should love?


God gives us that answer.  Listen in.  Note what God puts on your heart.


1 John 4:7-12  NLT  

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.


God is the one who begins love and loves us first.


Not loving is what points to the fact that we don’t know God.  Yet when we love others, it demonstrates that we do know God.


Love includes sacrifice.  Take a look at these verses and then go to 1 Corinthians 13.  What love does and how it responds speaks volumes about how we love.  Too often what others say love is looks selfish and self serving.  That is the furtherest fact from the love that God has given us.


Take a look around.


The people we will encounter this week have never seen God.  We haven’t seen God.  How can we help others know God and meet Him?


It is by our love.  When we love with godly and pure and unconditional love, we are pointing people not to us but to God.


May that be the case this week.  Let us love like God loves.  Let us show others what God looks like, how He acts, and how much He loves.


Romans 13:8  NLT  

Owe nothing to anyone—except for your obligation to love one another. If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill the requirements of God’s law.


NOTE: in one week I leave for a mission trip to Cuba once again.  Please pray for the trip, those who will be traveling, and pray for the FCA ministry in Cuba.  If you would like to help with this ministry, please reach out to me at pastormh@gmail.com 

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