Sunday, December 21, 2014

Reframing Christmas | Love All

I John 3:16-18

Loving All is the final element of Reframing Christmas. That is what Jesus did by His birth; he loved us all.  How does that play out in our homes and families this Christmas?  What does love really look like?
The love of God is not an emotional love but a love of purpose.  It loves to transform; not to condone.

I. Loving All Requires Receiving a Sacrifice.   

·  The sacrifice of the Father  John 3:16a "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son”

·  The sacrifice of the Son  1 John 3:16a “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us;” 
Jesus understands sacrifice in a way that we never will because we cannot love as purely as He loved.

II. Loving All Requires Being a Sacrifice. 1 John 3:16b and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 

·  Here is the Loving All – It is compassion and consideration displayed in our everyday relationships.
·  The heart of sacrificial conduct is Agape love. I Corinthians 13:4-7 

AGAPE LOVE CAN:
*     temper” your temper.  patient
*     help you do hard things in a soft way.  kind 
*     cause you to celebrate the success of others.  not jealous
*     make you humble.  not brag
*     make you gracious and polite.  not act unbecomingly
*     make you a servant.  not seek its own
*     make you calm and unflappable. not provoked  
*     make you forgiving. not take into account a wrong suffered
*     make you an encourager. not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth 
*     make you a defender.  bears all things 
*     make you faithful.  believes all things 
*     make you optimistic.  hopes all things 
*     make you persevere.  endures all things   

III. Loving All Requires Sharing Sacrificially. 

·      We need to be sacrificial with our currency.  But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?  1John 3:17

·      We need to be sacrificial in our conduct.  Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.  1John 3:18


IV. To Love sacrificially requires a New Nature  Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:7- 8

Devotional Archive