A small group Bible Study:
Discuss the Greatest Commandment:
Mark 12:28-31
28One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" 29"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' 31The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
Understanding Love from
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Love is superior
1. Love is superior to human and angelic tongues
2. Love is superior to prophecy and words of knowledge
3. Love is superior to mountain moving faith
4. Love is superior to sacrificial giving
5. Love is superior to dying a martyrs death in flames
1. Love is superior to human and angelic tongues
The apostle Paul says in scripture …
1 Corinthians 14:18
I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.
If the Apostle says this, how much more does he thank God that he loves?
I believe humans are fairly bankrupt in the area of Godly love without first having received the tangible Love of God for them. I believe we’re good at saying we love when we’re really in a mutually advantageous relationship. Just stop meeting that persons need and see what happens to the “love”. If it doesn’t last it was only lust.
Discuss a mutually advantageous relationship and how when the back scratching stops so does the relationship.
1 John 4:19-21
19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Can we love God’s way if we haven’t received the tangible love of God?
2. Love is superior to prophecy and words of knowledge.
When you think how incredible prophecy and words of knowledge are, think that Love is superior. What good does it do if you prophecy without love? Your prophecies can take on the wrong direction. Even hard prophecies should be clothed in love and redemption.
1 Corinthians 14:1
Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy.
Holy Spirit says that we should eagerly desire and covet spiritual gifts.
If we should covet spiritual gifts, how much more should we covet the desire to truly love?
3. Love is superior to mountain moving faith!
When you think about all the sermons on faith, all the ministries build around faith, all the emphasis put on faith. I’m glad for it and know that faith is something that we should have.
However something is superior to real mountain moving faith!
If you don’t have Love your mountain moving faith is nothing.
4. Love is superior to sacrificial giving
Think about someone that gives everything they have to the poor. If they don’t do it in love they’ve wasted their time. If they do it with wrong motives they will not receive a reward.
1 Corinthians 3:12-15
12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
Discuss right and wrong motives when it comes to Christian Works. Have someone describe a work that is Gold and have someone also describe a work that is hay or stubble.
5. Love is superior to dying a martyr’s death in flames.
Revelation 12:11
They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.
One of the often forgotten components to having overcoming power is not loving your own life so much as to shrink from death. It’s very powerful and impressive
Love is superior
The 16 facets to God’s Love
1. Love is
Patient –
1: bearing pains or trials calmly or without complaint
2: manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain
3: not hasty or impetuous
4: steadfast despite opposition, difficulty, or adversity
5: able or willing to bear
2. Love is
Kind –
1: affectionate, loving
2 a: of a sympathetic or helpful nature
b: of a forbearing nature : gentle
c: arising from or characterized by sympathy or forbearance such as a kind act
3. Love is not
Envious
1: painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage
4. Love is not
Boastful
1: to puff oneself up in speech: speak vaingloriously
2: glory, exult
1: to speak of or assert with excessive pride
5. Love is not
Proud
1: feeling or showing pride:
a: having or displaying excessive self-esteem
b: much pleased : exultant
6. Love is not
Rude –
c: offensive in manner or action : discourteous
d: uncivilized , savage
e: coarse , vulgar
7. Love is Not
Self Seeking
: the act or practice of selfishly advancing one's own ends
8. Love is not
Easily angered
1 : a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism
2 : rage
an intense emotional state induced by displeasure.
9. Love Keeps no record of wrongs
Conscious or unconscious
The only way to keep no record of wrongs is to surrender your personal rights. When you do this you have lost the right to keep track and make things “fair”. This blind love is truly love. With this type of love bitterness doesn’t have a chance to spring up. With bitterness you don’t have God’s kind of love in action.
10. Love does not delight in Evil
Someone would delight in evil if they had a corrupt heart. This heart needs to be renewed by the Lord.
False realities aren’t a part of true love.
Someone who likes to see people hurting, that’s not love.
11. Love Rejoices with the Truth
John 14:6
6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
John 17:17
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.
Truth –
a: the property of being in accord with fact or reality
b: fidelity to an original or to a standard
12. Love Always
Protects-
1 a: to cover or shield from exposure, injury, damage, or destruction
: To guard and defend
13. Love Always
Trusts-
1 a: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something
b: one in which confidence is placed
14. Love Always
Hopes-
1a: to cherish a desire with anticipation
1b: to desire with expectation of obtainment
2: to expect with confidence
15. Love always
Perseveres –
: to persist in a state, enterprise, or undertaking in spite of counterinfluences, opposition, or discouragement
16. Love never
Fails –
a: to fall short
b: to be or become absent or inadequate
c: to be unsuccessful
1 John 4:8
whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Jubilee Family Church