Is it possible to love like Jesus?, episode 136

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If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right

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here at When You Love a Prodigal and also help and hope for your own life journey.

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If you listened last week to the challenging clothing of forgiveness, were you able to

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forgive someone or ask someone to forgive you?

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Today we look at the final piece of clothing that Paul challenges us to wear, and that

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is love.

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Be sure to jot down what you might want to do to clothe yourself with love.

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In John 13 we read Jesus saying, A new command I give you, love one another.

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He said that before, but then he goes on and says, How were to do it?

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As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

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So he's not just saying love people, he's saying love like I love.

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Jesus said some pretty radical things about love, then he commanded us to do the impossible,

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but love others as he has loved us, which he defined as laying down his life for us.

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We're going to see what writers of the New Testament tell us that kind of loving and

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living will look like.

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I find it helpful to think about my relationships, my friendships, even acquaintances or neighbors,

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coworkers, and especially my love protocol, and ask myself, How am I loving them?

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Here are a few of the encouragements to love for us.

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Romans 12, love must be sincere.

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Hate what is evil, cling to what is good.

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Be devoted to one another in love.

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Honor one another above yourselves.

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That's easy to do, right?

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Do everything in love.

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Be completely humble, be patient, bearing with one another in love.

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Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

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For all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

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So love is the thing that comes to all these other pieces of clothing that we're supposed

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to be wearing, and that all is held together by love.

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Love all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.

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So the Lord is recognizing that it's hard to love when somebody's been hurting you in

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some way or other, and he says, Real love, my kind of love will cover that.

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This is how we know what love is.

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This is in 1 John.

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Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers

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and sisters and our prodigal children.

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I know it didn't say that, but it means everyone.

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If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need, but has no pity

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on them, how can the love of God be in that person?

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Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth.

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Pretty radical things, Jesus says.

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And then the most well-known description of living out love in 1 Corinthians 13.

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Love is patient.

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Well, good.

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We studied patients last week.

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That helps.

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Love is kind.

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Oh, we studied that at the beginning.

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It does not envy.

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It does not boast.

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It is not proud.

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We studied humility.

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It does not dishonor others.

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It is not self-seeking.

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It is not easily angered.

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It keeps no record of wrongs.

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Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

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It always protects and trusts and hopes and perseveres.

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Love never fails.

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Well, lots of encouragement to make love a priority, to love all the people in our lives,

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and to be willing to lay down our lives for those people.

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That's hard.

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Not easy to think of how you're going to do that.

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Of course, it is impossible for us to truly love like Jesus.

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And we've mentioned that each week as we've done this study.

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We have to do it through His Holy Spirit, living and loving through us.

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So I am grateful that He provided the radical power for such a radical requirement to love

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as He loved.

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So let me try to summarize what loving like Jesus looks like in real life.

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I need all the help I can get to truly love as Jesus loved, especially to truly love my

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prodigal.

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Here are a few gems I learned.

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First, God has set the standard for love, lived out by Jesus.

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Love lays down its life.

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Beautiful, but impossible for me to live out of my own.

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So God made it possible.

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We love because He first loved us.

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First we were loved, and now we can love.

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He did it first, and now we have the ability through the Spirit in us to love like Jesus

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loved.

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God's love is so vast beyond our comprehension.

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Jesus tells us in Psalm 103, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great

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is His love for those who fear Him, for those who recognize He's God and all-powerful.

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He says, it's more, you can't even imagine what all of the sky above the earth and the

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universe out there, but that's how much He loves us.

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And that love includes forgiveness, healing, redemption from the pit, compassion, satisfaction,

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good things, even tells us you're three nude, righteousness, justice, grace, and so much

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more.

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But in the hard times, fear is often pervasive.

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Those are frightening, especially when you love a prodigal, what might happen to them

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is a scary thing.

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And yet we find in 1 John, there is no fear in love.

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Perfect love drives out fear.

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So as we learn to keep loving by the power of God's love in us, then we will have the

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fear dissipate and sent away.

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The love chapter, which I just read a minute ago in 1 Corinthians 13, I am always grateful

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for this description that I read a few minutes ago of what God's love is like, but I am

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greatly challenged and again dependent on the Holy Spirit to live out this kind of love

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on a daily basis.

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I read it before, but I find I need to read it over and over.

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So I'm going to read it again slowly so that you can let God pinpoint what might be most

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helpful to you.

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Love is patient.

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Love is kind.

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It does not envy.

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It does not boast.

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It is not proud.

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It does not dishonor others.

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It is not self seeking.

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It is not easily angered.

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It keeps no record of wrongs.

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Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth.

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It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

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Love never fails.

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We love that God loves us unconditionally.

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We are grateful that he loves us no matter what we do or don't do.

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Everything can make him love us more or less than he does, but that's also how we are to

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love.

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The hardest reality for me to embrace is that unconditional love does not require love in

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return because when we love, we want to be loved back.

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And I really have struggled with that, with wanting my prodigal to be able to love me

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in response to all the ways that I was seeking to love him.

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And God says, love has no conditions.

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Love also goes to war.

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What do I mean by that?

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We are in a battle.

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We have an enemy.

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And those we love have that same enemy.

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Our enemy is a liar, a schemer, a roaring lion set on destroying.

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When we love someone, we must enter the fray with them and for them.

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Love is mentioned 686 times in God's word.

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Obviously, I barely touched on it today.

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It is the centerpiece of God's word that we have received love from him and we are to

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give that to the people in our lives.

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He wants us to know that he loves us no matter what.

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We can't stop his love.

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Jesus came and died for us because of that love.

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But he said we are to love like he loved.

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Knowing that was impossible, he sent his spirit to live in us and give us the willingness

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and the power to love like Jesus.

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So what does knowing how much God loves you do for you?

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Unconditional.

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You can't stop it.

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You can't earn it either.

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Can you think of ways that you can love your protocol like that, like Jesus laying down

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your life?

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What might you do to put on or clothe yourself or dress like Jesus?

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Wrapping it up with the seven weeks of looking at these characteristics of the clothing we're

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to wear.

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Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion,

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kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

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Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone.

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Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

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And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

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Next week we will have a special guest.

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God bless you.