Love God - Love People

Our highest purpose is to love God and to love people

Many people believe the Bible is all about what we can do and what we are not supposed to do. Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was in the Bible by someone who wanted to have a clear understanding what the dos and don’ts were. He replied by telling them to love God with the whole being and to love other people like they love themselves (Matthew 22:36-40). Jesus said if you want to satisfy every commandment in the Bible – do those two things: love God and love people.

We love God so that we can love other people

One of the ways we show God that we love Him is by loving the things and people that He loves. The Bible tells us that God loves all people (John 3:16). In fact, God created all people so that He could love them. If we are being honest, we will admit that loving all the people God loves is hard. For some it might even seem impossible. Thankfully, God never asks us to do something He is not prepared and able to help us do.

We love God by loving what God says

The very nature of God is love (1 John 4:18). Everything He does or says is motivated by His love for those He created to be the objects of His love. Even the hard things, or the things we don’t agree with that God says are an expression of His perfect love for us. One of the most important ways that we can love God is by loving what He said. Jesus said is a major step in loving God (John 14:21).

If more people loved God, there would be more love in the world for other people

This world does not have a race problem or a gender identity problem or a political problem. This world has a love problem. If people loved God with their whole being, they would be better able to love other people. The lack of this love is why all the other problems we do have, and many of them are tragic could be solved if people would just love one another. But that can only happen if we are loving God first.

We learn how to love God and others by being with others who are trying to do the same thing

Loving God and others do not come naturally to us. Left to ourselves to figure out, we would never discover how to love God and others the way we should. We need to be around other people who are trying to figure out how to love God and other people. But doing that can be challenging.

Learning to love others can be messy

If you have ever had a chance to watch young children play on a team sport, then you know that it is usually a bit chaotic. They might be in the wrong places or running into each other or going the wrong way. In a word, it is ‘messy’. Learning to love God is much the same. When you gather a group of people together who are trying to learn how to love God and each other, it can be messy. People will do and say things that don’t seem right – they are ‘messy’.

It is okay to be messy when you are learning to love God and other people

At Calvary Chapel French Valley it is okay for people to be a little messy while they are learning how to love God and other people. That messiness is part of the process of learning. We are not perfect, and we don’t expect anyone else to be perfect. Our goal is to love God and each other as well as we are humanly able to do so. Bring your messiness into the church and let’s help each other be better.

To listen to a teaching on the nature of God’s love click this link: http://bit.ly/3OdNydR

You can check CCFV out in-person on Sundays @ 9:30 am at the address below. Or you can watch a service live on YouTube by clicking the button at the top of your screen.

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