LOVE COMPLETELY
When everything is said and done it’s not what you own, how much money is in your bank account, what toys we won or where we live. The memories and words live on long after we are gone.
God created us with a need for connection with Him and with other people.
In the Garden of Eden, the Lord said:
“The Lord God said, “It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him”.
Genesis 2:18
We are created with the need for social intimacy.
We want to be loved, known, and love others in return.
We also see in Genesis that Adam and Eve disobeyed God and sin entered the world – the human condition of selfishness, where we want things the way we want it.
We want close relationship where we are known, loved and we love in return but it isn’t that easy because the people around you aren’t perfect.
Some people are like sandpaper.
They irritate you, rub you the wrong way, and the relationship can cause you pain.
Tools
A stupid, irritating or contemptable man. A foolish or unlikeable person.
Measuring Tape
You don’t measure up. They feel compelled to set the standards for everyone else and they judge by their own standards and it’s almost never accurate or consistent. Never good enough.
Hammers
These are the people who push their agendas on anyone and everyone regardless of the collateral damage. Everyone walks on egg shells around the hammer because you never know when the hammer is going to fall.
Skill Saw
They win verbal arguments all the time because the words they say cut your limbs right off and you feel worthless. They don’t win the argument because they are right, they win because they know how to hurt other people the most.
Vice Grips
These are the people who get a grip on you and refuse to let go. They are extra needy and if you give them a dollar they need five more. They bounce from one crisis to the next clinging to anyone they can get a grip on.
Grinders
These are people with explosive personalities just waiting to grind you down to nothing. When you run into a grinder sparks fly.
Axe
These people chop down every good idea unless its theirs and they hack away at others to show how sharp they are. Axe’s tend to be really negative and cut people down every chance they get.
Screw Guns
The people who are constantly trying to screw you. Could be a business partner or a neighbor.
Putty People
These are the people who have no backbone. They are eager to please and are always willing to help but since they have no backbone you can’t count on them for anything. Putty people are spread way to thin all the time always wanted to please everyone.
How do we love completely?
1. Receive love from God
Experiencing the love of God changes us.
When I can be honest with God and know He still loves me, I know He is for me and wants the best for me.
In order to do that, we need to be honest with God…What is going on inside?
We need to let him in allowing ourselves to be open to the most important things to us
2. Love yourself
Once we receive the unconditional love of God, we can begin to draw on who he says we are.
You are not a failure, God isn’t waiting to catch you messing up.
Peter denied Christ 3 times and Jesus restored his relationship with Peter.
Jesus did not need to, but Peter needed to know that he was still loved by Jesus.
When we make the decision to follow Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside us-
to teach us, counsel us and comfort us.
In that moment our position before God changes from sinner to saint.
We are who God says we are now.
Who you are:
- A new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17)
- A child of God (John 1:12)
- A friend of Jesus (John 15:15)
- An heir (Rom. 8:17)
- A saint (1 Cor. 1:2)
- An ambassador for Christ (2 Cor. 5:20)
- The righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21)
- Chosen (Eph. 1:4)
- Redeemed and forgiven (Eph. 1:7)
- A citizen of heaven (Phil. 3:20)
- No longer a slave, but free (Gal. 5:1)
3 Love others
We love others by applying what we received from God: forgiveness and love to other people.
Leaving a legacy of love
Prioritize your relationship with God
- When God is invited in to all areas of our lives, deepest hopes and biggest struggles and we have him meet our needs we aren’t looking to other people to fill the role only God can.
- When God is invited in to all areas of our lives, deepest hopes and biggest struggles and we have him meet our needs we aren’t looking to other people to fill the role only God can.
Forgive quickly and resist bitterness
- Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. - Matthew 22:37-39
- Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. - Matthew 22:37-39
We need connections with people around us where we are known, loved and can love.
The people around us need the same.
Appreciate the usefulness of the tools in our life.
- A handmade table takes all of those tools to make it.
- Every tool helps refine the raw materials to make the table what it is today.
The same can be said of the people around us.
They can be irritating, irrational or ignorant but God can still refine our character through them.
We are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10
Workmanship – Masterpiece or work of art
God is crafting you into a masterpiece through your relationships.
The people around us are smoothing out our rough edges.
- Maybe that measuring tape person is teaching you to look to God for approval father then that person.
It is so much easier to point out someone else’s flaws rather then look at our own.
Why do you look at the speck of saw of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brothers.
Matthew 7:3-5
Concentrate on your own life and letting God change you,
and when it is necessary to say something it will come from a place of love and humility.
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
John 13:34
When we experience the love of God in our relationship with him it increases our ability to love others.
We cannot give what we do not have.
That is why experiencing God’s love is the first step.
When we are getting our need for love filled by God -
We are less likely to expect someone else to fill that deep need to be fully known and loved unconditionally.
Genuine Love
Love is patient. It can wait.
Love helps others, even if they never find out who assisted them.
Love doesn’t look for greener pastures.
Love doesn’t boast.
Love doesn’t try to build itself up to be something it isn’t.
Love doesn’t act in a loose, immoral way.
Love doesn’t seek to take, but it willingly gives.
Love doesn’t lose its temper.
Love doesn’t keep changing its mind.
Love doesn’t think about how difficult the other person is,
Love doesn’t think of how it could get back at someone.
Love is grieved deeply over the evil in this world, but it rejoices over truth.
Love comes and sits with you when you’re feeling down and finds out what is wrong.
Love empathizes with you and believes in you.
Love doesn’t give up, quit, diminish, or go home.
Love knows you’ll come through just as God planned, and love carries on to the end.
Love perseveres, even when everything goes wrong, the feelings leave, and the other person doesn’t seem special anymore.
Love succeeds 100 percent of the time.
Love doesn’t give up, quit, diminish, or go home.