Love Above All | Week 3 | Show Some Love
1 If I speak human or angelic languages but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith
so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1-3 HCSB
34 When the Pharisees heard that He had silenced the Sadducees, they came together. 36 “Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” 37 He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”
Matthew 22:34,36-40 HCSB
Love Above All
Oxford English Dictionary says, Love, noun: Senses relating to affection and attachment.
But we could also look to the artists. There is no shortage of love songs and poems written about love:
The Beatles - All You Need Is Love
Whitney Houston - I Will Always Love You
Jennifer Warnes - Love lift us up where we belong
1. What Is Love?
Secret to Love - Study by John Gottman
By observing these types of interactions, Gottman can predict with up to 94 percent certainty whether couples—rich or poor, childless or not—will be broken up, together and unhappy, or together and happy several years later. Much of it comes down to the spirit couples bring to the relationship. Do they bring kindness and generosity or contempt, criticism, and hostility?
In the Greek, which is the language used in the original New Testament
manuscripts, there are multiple words for love.
• Eros: Passionate love
• Philia: love of friends
• Storge: love of parents for children
• Agape: How God loves us
37 He said to him, “Love (agape) the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love (agape) your neighbor as yourself.
Matthew 22:37-39 HCSB
44 But I tell you, love (agape) your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
Matthew 5:44 HCSB
4 Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not conceited, 5 does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. 6 Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 HCSB
16 This is how we know what love (agape) is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
1 John 3:16 NIV
1. What Love Is
2. We All Need Love
8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins.
1 Peter 4:8 ESV
14 Your every action must be done with love.
1 Corinthians 16:14 HCSB
10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
Romans 12:10 ESV
21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
1 John 4:21 ESV
12 This is My command: Love one another as I have loved you.
John 15:12 HCSB
According to Robin Dunbar, psychologist and anthropologist:
It takes about 200 hours of investment in the space of a few months to move a stranger into being a good friend. Which suggests that close friends are very expensive in terms of time investment to maintain ... friendships require work.
How to Buy Happiness - Michael Norton Ted Talk
Your happiness is not dependent on how much stuff you have, the money you make, or the work you accomplish, it’s about how well you love others.
1. What Love Is
2. We All Need Love
3. God Loves You
16 And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. 18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because He first loved us.
1 John 4:16, 18-19 HCSB
And in her (Luisa - from Encanto) song, “Surface Pressure”, she sings these lyrics:
Under the surface
I'm pretty sure I'm worthless, if I can't be of service
Who am I if I can't run with the ball?
Who am I if I can't carry it all?
God loves you for who you are, not what you do.
27 So God created man in His own image; He created him in the image of God; He created them male and female.
Genesis 1:27 HCSB
4 For He chose us in Him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love
Ephesians 1:4 HCSB
35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 37 No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, 39 height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Romans 8:35, 37-39 HCSB