This is Love. Part 1

(Continuing from This is Lust...)

Love is the opposite!  Love can only come from God, and love is God!  Seek God and find love. Seek love and find God. J
Let's take a look at a very special verse I found last week.  What better place to study love than the book of Song of Songs!  If you are a romance reader or love guru, check out this entire book sometime for a good read!

Song of Songs 8:6-7

“Place me like a seal over your heart,
like a seal on your arm;
for love is as strong as death,
its jealousy unyielding as the grave.
It burns like blazing fire,
like a mighty flame.

Many waters cannot quench love;rivers cannot wash it away.
  If one were to give

all the wealth of this house for love,
 it would be utterly scorned.”

This verse is so beautiful, so powerful, and so full of knowledge about love.  Take a look at the first part, “Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm…”  The author is begging God to not just love him, but to place a seal over His heart and around his arm, showing that he was God’s and God was his.  I think of this “seal” like a wedding ring.  A man gives a woman a wedding ring for 2 reasons. 1) to show her that he is hers and she is his for life.  It’s a daily reminder of their love for one another. 2) to show other men that her heart has already been taken by another man.

Some girls wear purity rings to show that their purity has been given to God’s will, which means they are waiting until marriage to have sex.  What a beautiful promise to wear on your finger every day; the promise of love and fulfillment in a long term goal.

 I see lots of students my age wear necklaces with special meanings.  The ministry I’m involved in has a joke about wearing your “Jesus necklace” to show that you are a Christian.  This is just a joke that came up because we noticed almost all of us happen to wear necklaces with a cross of some sort on them.  My Catholic friends wear a rosary around their neck.  People who have lost loved ones sometimes wear a memorial necklace.  High school girls wear their sweetheart’s ring around their neck.  The examples are endless.

So why do we wear special things around our arms, fingers, or neck?  I can’t tell you the exact answer, but it seems to be a special place for people or things we love.  The bible talks extensively about seals and metaphorically hanging things around your neck.  2 Timothy 2:19 says, “Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: ‘The Lord knows those who are his…’”  Even God seals things with inscriptions.  It’s a sign of permanent importance, love, remembrance.  It is a covenant, or a promise.

So what’s the seal over your heart?  Is it God?  Your boyfriend?  A hobby?  A talent, maybe basketball or volleyball?  Do you put these things above your love for God?  I know it’s “just jewelry” to many of us, but think about it…what you put around your neck everyday really does say something about you.

Also, have you ever asked God to place you as a seal over his heart?  What about around his arm?  Do you want God to love you like that?  What are you afraid of?  Allow him to love you and consume your heart with His love, I promise you won’t regret it.

This is lust.

A couple days ago, one of my professors randomly asked, “At what point does a boy stop being a boy and become a man? He of course, was just being facetious, not wanting an actual answer, but the next morning in my quiet time I feel like God showed me the answer.

1 Corinthians 13:11 says, “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.” I always thought this verse was just about growing up and being responsible, but as I studied it yesterday, I realized that the author here is talking about love.

Love is a hard thing to do. It’s unnatural. It only comes from and through God. So for a man to purposely love a woman, it is the bravest thing he will ever do. It’s also the most mature thing he will do, because he is choosing to set aside his desires and encourage and point her toward Christ.

Some of you may be confused right now, let me explain something. Society has taught us that love is 2 weeks of dating someone and feeling giddy when they call. They have also taught us that sex is love and that if you have a strong desire for someone, you must be in love. If love is supposed to be perfect, life-changing, and last forever, why do these things leave us feeling depressed, lonely and confused afterwards?

That’s because the previous mentioned are examples of lust not love. Lust is directed inward. It’s me saying, “This is what I want, and I am going to do whatever it takes to get it.” It’s a man saying, “I want that girl’s body so I will feel better about myself. I need her to make me look good.” Or “I’m lonely tonight; maybe I’ll call up ____ so I can be comforted right now.” Lust thinks short term, (I want it now, I need you baby, call me now, I can’t be alone.) Lust is what you do for physical satisfaction right now. It’s easy, it’s natural, it’s satisfying the sinful nature just like we have all done since the day we were born. A baby wants attention, so it cries till it gets some. If a woman wants someone to hold her, she’ll flirt till she finds someone. Again, lust focuses on me and what I want. It’s inward.

So if everything we ever thought about love is actually lust, then what is love?

That lesson will be following shortly…

If you’re in a relationship right now, do you see lust rather than love? Is your relationship easy because it seems “natural” to want to be with him? Could that be because you are satisfying the desires of lust rather than love?

If you struggle with being single do you recognize your desire for a relationship being more based on lust than love? Do you easily fall in “desire” for men? Is this so you can feed your flesh rather than your spirit (lust not love)?

The REAL Love Story

John 15:13

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Are you still sitting around wondering what true love looks like? Do you ponder if it even exists? Can a marriage even last till death or is it all just a fairytale. Is love just "magical comfort food for the weak and uneducated?" as Matthew Mcconaughey says in the movie Ghosts of Girlfriends Past.

The truth is their is only one way to experience true love and that is through Jesus Christ. The bible says that God IS love and those who know him know love. Without God it is impossible to truly love another person. This video puts it into perspective by using the name Love for God. Love is supernatural which means it's not something we automatically do. We automatically lustand want, but love is more than that. It takes power that we do not have in our own flesh. Once again, if you want to love and experience true love, there is only one source: God.

1 John 4:7-8

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.

Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

Whoever does not love does not know God,

because God is love.

Lust vs. Love.2

Hope you can see this chart, I couldn't make it any bigger. Anyways if not save it as a picture and zoom in on it. Also, feel free to comment or post question!! :)

o 1 John 2:16 “For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world.”

o 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 “It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; ⁴ that each of you should learn to control your own body^[a] in a way that is holy and honorable, ⁵ not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; “

o 1 Peter 4:3-8 “For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. ⁴ They are surprised that you do not join them in their reckless, wild living, and they heap abuse on you. ⁵ But they will have to give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. ⁶ For this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead, so that they might be judged according to human standards in regard to the body, but live according to God in regard to the spirit. The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. ⁸Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”

o Proverbs 27:20 “ Death and Destruction^[a] are never satisfied,
and neither are human eyes.”

o 1 John 4: 18 “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

o 1 John 4:7-8 “ ⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Lust vs. Love.1

Lust vs. Love

- What is Lust?

o Definition: lecherousness: a strong sexual desire; crave: have a craving, appetite, or great desire for self-indulgent (personified as one of the deadly sins)

o My Bible’s Definition: inappropriate and excessive desire or craving.

- What is Love?

o Love is a choice, not a feeling.

o You don’t fall into it. You choose to grow deeper in it. (you also don’t fall out)

o It does not come naturally. You have to work at it. Romans 12:9-19

§ People who are not cool, ugly, below us, etc.

§ Showing God’s grace. (undeserved gift)

§ It takes time, money, effort, energy

o Galatians 5:22- It’s a fruit of the Spirit “And the fruit of the spirit is love..”

o Galatians 5:14-it sums up the entire law “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

o John 15:13-14 Laying down your life- “Greater love has no man than this, he”

o 1 John 3:18-It’s not just words, “Let us not love in words and in tongue, but in action and in truth.”