CURRENT SERIES
The Love of God
Feb. 25, 2018
LifeWay Moments
LifeNotes
— The love of God —
• As Christians, we should be walking in the highest level of wisdom of anybody, because God knows everything and we have the mind of Christ.
And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.
— Romans 8:38 NLT
• Even our stupid mistakes will not cause God to stop loving us. But, we will reap the lack of benefits because of those stupid mistakes. We reap a bad harvest because we sowed bad seeds. It has nothing to do with God not loving us.
• There is nothing that can take the Love of God away from us. He loved us while we were still vile sinners.
May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.
— Ephesians 3:19 NLT
• What happens when you understand the love of God better? You are able to love better, and you are able to receive love better.
Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.
— 1 Corinthians 13:13 NLT
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.
— Galatians 5:22 KJV
• When you walk in love, it produces all of the other fruit. You can walk in love and have all of the fruit, but you can walk in peace and not have joy. You can’t truly walk in any of the fruits until you receive the love of God.
Different words in the Greek for love:
Eros: passion, erotic, a sexual term. It is the only type of love the world without Christ understands. It is the type of love that says, “As long as you do what I want, we’re good.” Something stimulates that kind of love. If God had that kind of love for us, He could fall out of love or break up with us.
• God’s love for us is not based on how we feel. God is bigger than our feelings, He is bigger than our problems and He is bigger than our mistakes, He is bigger than anything we could do. Nothing can separate us from His love.
Philia: brotherly, friendship type of love. Speaks of a camaraderie, nothing deep or intimate, just a more casual type of love.
• We take too many cues from other people in the world about love instead of letting the Holy Spirit speak to us about how to love people. We don’t have the power in the flesh to agape someone.
Pragma: longstanding love. It refers to a marriage where you learn to compromise.
• Marriage is a compromise, it is never about you getting your way. You have to submit to someone else.
“I have no capacity to love somebody else until I learn how to have a relationship with the perfect One.”
— Pastor Danny
• If you can’t have a relationship with the perfect Son of God, how will you ever get along with somebody that’s imperfect?
Stergo: devotion. The love between parents and children or between family members.
• Don’t tell people they’re OK when they are not living right. Don’t placate people and tell them what they want to hear.
Agape: The love of God. High-level love. No higher, finer or more excellent love than agape. John 3:16 is the best example of agape — God loved the world so much, agape, He gave His only Son for it.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.
— Galatians 5:22-23 KJV
• Nothing we do changes God
And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
— Galatians 5:24-25 KJV
• Walking in the Spirit simply means to walk in the fruits of the Spirit. You will know when you are in the Spirit because the fruits of the Spirit will be produced in your life.
• If you are in the Spirit, you will know you are out of the Spirit when you feel the ‘yuck.”
Life Lesson
There are all kinds of Greek words for love, but only through the Holy Spirit can we love the way God intended.