New Love

What is love? When I first ask myself the question the first thing that pops into my mind is the 1990’s song “What is Love?” by Haddaway. If you don’t know the song, I advise against you listening to it because I promise it will get stuck in your head. I find that the best way to answer the question, “what is love”, is to look to scripture. The Bible has a lot to say about love, as a matter of fact there are several hundred verses about it and various words in Greek and Hebrew that are used to describe it. To ask the question what is love, is to embark on a journey that never ends.

This month we began a sermon series called, “The Best Year Yet”, because that is what I believe God has for us here at Lake Cities, our best year yet is ahead of us. Each week we have discussed various forms of “new”. So far we have shared about the blessing of a “New Year”, the empowerment of “New Wisdom”, and the responsibility to set “New Priorities”. This week we will be discussing how God will be leading us to a “New Love”. Our scripture will focus on 1 John 4:7-21. In these verses the John is urging the church to love one another because this is true religion, love for God and love for our neighbor. I will go into more detail about this on Sunday, but for now what I hope you hear from this is that John understood that in everything thing we do we must look beyond the immediate consequences of self and consider the well being of others.

In our society there is a lot of “me” focus. We don’t often consider how our actions will affect our neighbors, society, or even others in the near & far future. As Christians we must consider not only how our actions, whether intentional or not, will affect our neighbor. A “New Love” for our neighbors is found when we start thinking and caring beyond ourselves. Through this, we can all learn what it is like to make a positive difference in the world – we can love as God loves!

In God’s grip,

Pastor Chuck Church