Necessity of Love

Character of Love:  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Permanency of Love But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

I want to take a minute and tell you about the things that I love.  I love rugby and out door activities such as camping and white water rafting.  I love hiking, I love you, I love my Family, I love preaching and ministering, I love seeing people be set free and delivered, I love seeing people healed. And oh I love Spicy food and I love Mexican.  I love my dogs.  Well before we get all mushy hear and we all stand up and sing Kumbaya, I want to tell you why I am talking about love.  Each time I used the word Love I used it differently.  We mean all different kinds of things when we talk about love.  We have different levels of commitment and attraction and responsibility.  When we use the word.  I obviously love my family more than I love Spicy food. 
We can say that we love one another, but do we really mean what we say? We say that God is love.  We are always talking about Love inside the church and out.  Once we step out side of the walls of the church love is defined by movie, magazines, romance novels.  Over 180 Millions romance novels are purchased every year.  Harlequin itself sells 5 ½ books a second.  These things effect our ideas about what love really is.   Now, I just read the 13th chapter of the Book of Corinthians. They easily break down into three sections. The first section, verses 1-3 talk about the necessity of love. The second section, verses 4-7 talks about the character of love and the third section that begins around the 8th verse talks about the permanence of love. So the first thing we see here is the necessity of love. Love is essential. Paul originally wrote these words to a church that had all kinds of things going on. They were a growing church. They were a church full of people who knew their spiritual design and knew what their spiritual gifts were and were using those gifts. They had enough faith to pray big prayers and to expect big answers from God and yet at the same time they were a church that argued constantly. There were groups that felt superior to one another and they tolerated all kinds of immorality in their lives and in the lives of other people. To this complicated and conflicted Corinthian church Paul wrote that we could have all kinds of supernatural experiences. We can speak with the tongue of men and angels. We can have the gift of prophecy. We can fathom all kinds of mysteries. We can have faith that moves mountains. We can give all that we have to the poor and we can even give our lives in sacrifice and if we do not have love, it means nothing. So the first thing we learn about love is that it is essential. It's not an option for a successful life. When it comes to relationships, anything minus love equals nothing. Zero. Love is essential.

 The second section talks about character of love.  Look at the bachelor TV show, 12 contestants try to make one person fall in love with them and be the final girl or guy at the end.  After all of that what do they have in their relationship, is it love?  When we use the word love we think the word romantic.  The love Paul is talking about here is more than emotional it’s love that can love even love the unlovable.

In verse 3 it says that we can give everything to the poor, we can lay down our life’s for it but if we do not have love we have nothing.  When I was working in an orphanage in Mexico I worked with this man who had given up everything sold his nice house in Texas, quit his job, and moved his family.  This man was involved in every political debate, every let’s change Mexico campaign, and he worked for the cause of finding out who was killing the women in Juarez.  Yet I can honestly say that I don’t think this man had a bit of love.  I remember the kids coming to him to want a hug and he would push them away, with don’t bother me look I have things to do.   The children were all fearful of him.  I remember one time when the boys didn’t remember to water the donkey there for this man would not let them have water for two days as punishment.  I had to sneak them in water.  This man often acted as superior.  See he gave everything he had to help the poor yet he never learned how to love those that he gave it all up for.
Paul is talking to a church, and he is telling people within the church that this is the kind of relationships that you need to have. And this same principle applies toward any deep relationships we have outside of the church. This is the characteristic of real love wherever we experience it give it. It's even true in our relationship with God.

God loves us like this. God is patient with us. God is kind to us. He is not easily angered with us. These things are true. If we put Jesus' name instead of love in this passage, Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind, Jesus doesn't envy, we see a picture of the kind of life that Jesus lived and so we have this assurance that this is the way God loves us. So that means that God accepts us right now as we are, but God loves us enough to not leave us there. He wants us to change.

LOVE
we need to love one another
We need to love God and the church

Deuteronomy 6:4-6 (New King James Version   We need to Love God

4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one![a] 5 You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
6 “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: "You shall love your neighbour as yourself." On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.'
Matthew 22:34-38 (New King James Version)
34 But when the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 Then one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, and saying, 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”
37 Jesus said to him, “ ‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and great commandment.

Who is our neighbour?

• Some one in trouble
• Some one that is ill
• Some one that lost a loved one
• Next- door neighbour
• India, Africa and other places where people are in need
• Lonely
• Seniors or those that are house bound