Heavy-Duty Love

Heavy-Duty Love

The term love tends to be over used and abused and the specialness of that word loses its meaning…like saying I love hot dogs! Or signing off your IM with Love ya!
OR when the society around you tells you love is all about having the perfect dating relationship. If all we did was watch TV and movies to get our defination for love then we would definately have a very different view of love.


So pause a minute and think, what are some of those insignficant meanings people have given to love? How does tv, movies display love? How have you seen that word used in culture, in school, with friends and from school?

How have you personally used the word love?

Now lets see what the Bible says about love:
I Corinthians 13:4-7
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, 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."

Now think back on what culture says love is. Culture's love is often very self-seeking.
But God’s love, found here in the Bible is the highest expression of love.

Its pure, its unconditional, its self-giving, and its rare.

This is the kind of love we are talking about! This is the type of love we as Christians are to have for God and for others.

Have you seen this love before?
Here's an example. Remember the Amish school shootings a couple of weeks ago?
The families of those daughters who were shot to death were not even done burying their children before they went to the family of the killer and told them that they love them, that they have forgiven the killer, that they accept them into their community.
That takes some heavy duty love.

Where did they get the ability to forgive like this?

If you answered God then you got it. Why is the answer God?
Because God sent his only son to Earth to die on the cross for our sins so that we might have eternal life!
Okay, okay...you've heard that. But picture this. Imagine Jesus in Heaven for all eternity, like he was, imagine Jesus in perfect bliss. Jesus and God the Father had the most beautiful loving relationship in Heaven and yet Jesus left Heaven to come to a broken, sinful, painful Earth where he endured 33 years of human existence to die on a cross so that we might have access to that perfect blissful love with God the Father. Amazing.
Would you have left Heaven to do that? Probably not. But Jesus did.
And that is why we love others because Jesus loved us more than we can ever imagine.
He surrended himself on the cross willingly because he loved us so much. Thats the type of love that is heavy duty.

Examine your hearts today...Is your love self-seeking? Or is your love self-surrendering?