LOVED
WITHOUT MEASURE
BREAD
3 The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with
loving-kindness.” Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV)
17 “The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty
to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he
will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah
3:17 (NIV)
27 The
eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. Deuteronomy 33:27 (NIV)
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only
Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the
world, but to save the world through him.”
John 3:16-17 (NIV)
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain
in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as
I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11 I have
told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:9-11 (NIV)
35 Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or
persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: “For your
sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God
that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans
8:35-39 (NIV)
4 Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It is
not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record
of wrongs. 6 Love
does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always
trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails…13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But
the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians
13:4-8, 13 (NIV)
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. 9 This
is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the
world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved
us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so
loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but
if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:7-12 (NIV)
12 “‘Even
now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return
to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’ 13 Rend your heart and not your
garments. Return to the Lord your
God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.” Joel
2:12-13 (NIV)
BUTTER
“Yes, there are graces to which we have not attained; places
of fellowship nearer to Christ which we have not reached; and heights of
communion which our feet have not climbed.
At every banquet of love many baskets of leftovers remain.” Charles H. Spurgeon
“God’s
love is always supernatural, always a miracle, always the last thing we
deserve.” Robert
Horn
“There is something contagious about a heart of love. People who are selfless with their love can make giant waves in this world where those who cling to selfish desires cause only ripples. In fact, those who have hearts of love view the people around them as being most important. A heart that bears the marks of God's intimate love is not a selfish heart. When we look directly into God's heart of love, we are transformed forever. The selfish desires that once dominated our heart's landscapes vanish in an instant, replaced by a desire to lavish love on others. As God begins to transform our hearts through His grace and kindness, we become vessels willing to reciprocate this type of love. Something happens inside of us. We begin to realize the twofold effect of loving God and loving others - not just friends and family, but others who cross our paths every day. Hardened hearts begin to melt beneath the warmth of Christ's love overflowing from our lives. People who we never thought would let the name of Jesus roll off their lips suddenly praise Him because we have taken the time to love them the way God has commanded us to love. Once we learn how to abide in His love, our feelings of jealousy, greed, and anger die a quick death. A true champion extends grace and kindness because he knows the transformation that has taken place in his own heart, and he realizes those who receive God's love and grace have no other course of action but to give God's love away.” Michael Youssef
“For
the love of God is broader than the measures of man’s mind; and the heart of
the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.” Frederick William Faber
“Wherefore it
follows that God created the whole world for the manifestation of his love and
goodness to the rational part of the world. Therefore there will doubtless be a
time wherein God will fully manifest his love to good men, to those that answer
the end of their creation. But reason tells us that they that fully enjoy the
love of God must be exceeding happy beyond compare: for how happy are men
sometimes in the love one of another. How much more happy, then, must they
necessarily be in the enjoyment of the love of him who is infinitely greater,
better and more excellent than any creature.” Jonathan Edwards
“God’s desire to communicate happiness to
the creature entails a willingness to experience loss to the sake of the
beloved. It is exceeding congruous for
God, a being of infinite goodness and love, to give to the creature the highest
sort of expression of love—which is expensed for the beloved. Therefore through the mission of the Son, God
reveals a love that suffers in behalf of the beloved. Now I can clearly and distinctly conceive how
the giving of Christ is the perfect expression of love, as the greatest expense
in a lover. For the incarnation
expresses the love of God in a way that is exceedingly noble and excellent and
agreeable to the glorious perfections of God.” Jonathan Edwards
“The
love of Christ both wounds and heals, it fascinates and frightens, it kills and
makes alive, it draws and repulses.
There can be nothing more terrible or wonderful than to be stricken with
love for Christ so deeply that the whole being goes out in a pained adoration
of His person, an adoration that disturbs and disconcerts while it purges and
satisfies and relaxes the deep inner heart.” A. W.
Tozer
HEART
SAVOR
- · As God has loved me a sinner, I am to love others.
- · Biblical love does – it is an action not simply a feeling. It always has the best interest at heart of the one beloved. It is self-less. It is to esteem, relish, honor, respect, prize and to be devoted to and it is rooted in the mind and the will. It is not of the flesh rather from above.
- · Biblical love is only possible through the indwelling power of the Spirit. My flesh will fail me every time.
