Is it possible to love like Jesus?, episode 136

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal and also help and hope for your own life journey. If you listened last week to the challenging clothing of forgiveness, were you able to forgive someone or ask someone to forgive you? Today we look at the final piece of clothing that Paul challenges us to wear, and that is love. Be sure to jot down what you might want to do to clothe yourself with love.

0:42 In John 13 we read Jesus saying, A new command I give you, love one another. He said that before, but then he goes on and says, How were to do it? As I have loved you, so you must love one another. So he's not just saying love people, he's saying love like I love. Jesus said some pretty radical things about love, then he commanded us to do the impossible, but love others as he has loved us, which he defined as laying down his life for us.

1:27 We're going to see what writers of the New Testament tell us that kind of loving and living will look like. I find it helpful to think about my relationships, my friendships, even acquaintances or neighbors, coworkers, and especially my love protocol, and ask myself, How am I loving them? Here are a few of the encouragements to love for us. Romans 12, love must be sincere. Hate what is evil, cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love.

2:11 Honor one another above yourselves. That's easy to do, right? Do everything in love. Be completely humble, be patient, bearing with one another in love. Husbands love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. For all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. So love is the thing that comes to all these other pieces of clothing that we're supposed to be wearing, and that all is held together by love.

2:59 Love all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins. So the Lord is recognizing that it's hard to love when somebody's been hurting you in some way or other, and he says, Real love, my kind of love will cover that. This is how we know what love is. This is in 1 John. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters and our prodigal children.

3:42 I know it didn't say that, but it means everyone. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need, but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth. Pretty radical things, Jesus says. And then the most well-known description of living out love in 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient. Well, good. We studied patients last week.

4:22 That helps. Love is kind. Oh, we studied that at the beginning. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. We studied humility. It does not dishonor others. 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 and trusts and hopes and perseveres. Love never fails. Well, lots of encouragement to make love a priority, to love all the people in our lives, and to be willing to lay down our lives for those people.

5:13 That's hard. Not easy to think of how you're going to do that. Of course, it is impossible for us to truly love like Jesus. And we've mentioned that each week as we've done this study. We have to do it through His Holy Spirit, living and loving through us. So I am grateful that He provided the radical power for such a radical requirement to love as He loved. So let me try to summarize what loving like Jesus looks like in real life. I need all the help I can get to truly love as Jesus loved, especially to truly love my prodigal.

6:02 Here are a few gems I learned. First, God has set the standard for love, lived out by Jesus. Love lays down its life. Beautiful, but impossible for me to live out of my own. So God made it possible. We love because He first loved us. First we were loved, and now we can love. He did it first, and now we have the ability through the Spirit in us to love like Jesus loved. God's love is so vast beyond our comprehension.

6:43 Jesus tells us in Psalm 103, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him, for those who recognize He's God and all-powerful. He says, it's more, you can't even imagine what all of the sky above the earth and the universe out there, but that's how much He loves us. And that love includes forgiveness, healing, redemption from the pit, compassion, satisfaction, good things, even tells us you're three nude, righteousness, justice, grace, and so much more.

7:29 But in the hard times, fear is often pervasive. Those are frightening, especially when you love a prodigal, what might happen to them is a scary thing. And yet we find in 1 John, there is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear. So as we learn to keep loving by the power of God's love in us, then we will have the fear dissipate and sent away. The love chapter, which I just read a minute ago in 1 Corinthians 13, I am always grateful for this description that I read a few minutes ago of what God's love is like, but I am greatly challenged and again dependent on the Holy Spirit to live out this kind of love on a daily basis.

8:25 I read it before, but I find I need to read it over and over. So I'm going to read it again slowly so that you can let God pinpoint what might be most helpful to you. Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It does not dishonor others. 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.

9:09 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. We love that God loves us unconditionally. We are grateful that he loves us no matter what we do or don't do. Everything can make him love us more or less than he does, but that's also how we are to love. The hardest reality for me to embrace is that unconditional love does not require love in return because when we love, we want to be loved back.

9:53 And I really have struggled with that, with wanting my prodigal to be able to love me in response to all the ways that I was seeking to love him. And God says, love has no conditions. Love also goes to war. What do I mean by that? We are in a battle. We have an enemy. And those we love have that same enemy. Our enemy is a liar, a schemer, a roaring lion set on destroying. When we love someone, we must enter the fray with them and for them.

10:37 Love is mentioned 686 times in God's word. Obviously, I barely touched on it today. It is the centerpiece of God's word that we have received love from him and we are to give that to the people in our lives. He wants us to know that he loves us no matter what. We can't stop his love. Jesus came and died for us because of that love. But he said we are to love like he loved. Knowing that was impossible, he sent his spirit to live in us and give us the willingness and the power to love like Jesus.

11:23 So what does knowing how much God loves you do for you? Unconditional. You can't stop it. You can't earn it either. Can you think of ways that you can love your protocol like that, like Jesus laying down your life? What might you do to put on or clothe yourself or dress like Jesus? Wrapping it up with the seven weeks of looking at these characteristics of the clothing we're to wear. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

12:17 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Next week we will have a special guest. God bless you.