ÿþ <html> <head> <title>Welcome to First United Methodist Church, El Dorado, AR,  The Meaning of... Love </title><!--- Jan 3, 2010 --> <meta name="description" content="First United Methodist church, El Dorado, AR, FUMC, F.U.M.C. First Church, First Methodist, Methodist John Wesley, Methodist, United Methodist Youth, United Methodist women" /> <meta name="keywords" content="First United Methodist church, El Dorado, AR, FUMC, F.U.M.C. 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Hill Street, El Dorado, AR 71730&nbsp; </font></DIV> </TD> </TR> </TABLE></TD> <TR> <td width="20%" valign="bottom"> <tr valign="top"> <td> <div align="center"> <table width="800" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" bgcolor="#000000" align="center"> <!----- center white area table code----------------> <tr valign="top" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> <td width="15%" height="85" bgcolor="#f5eacc"> <div align="center"> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="right"> <tr bgcolor="#FFFFFF" valign="top"> <td height="2"> <div align="center"> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" background="/graphix/faded.jpg"> <tr> <td> <div align="center"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> </tr> <!--------------------- left nav bar ------------> <table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr><td><br><br></td></tr> <tr align="left"><td> <font color="#000000" face="CAC futura casual" size="3"><b><a href="/staff.html">Ministry Staff</a><br><br> <a href="/Events_Announcements.html">Coming Events<BR> Announcements</a><br><br> <a href="/AboutUs.html">About Us</a><br><br> <a href="/Activities.html">Activities</a><br><br> <a href="/SS.html">Sunday School</a><br><br> <a href="/sermons.html">Sermons</a><br><br> <a href="/Music.html">Music Ministry</a><br><br> <a href="/Kindergarten.html">Kindergarten</a><BR><br> <a href="/Ithappened.html">It Happened</a><br><br> <a href="/Memorials.html">In Memoriam</a><br><br> <a href="/links.html">Links</a><br><br> <a href="/contact.html">Contact Us</a><br><br> <a href="/index.html">Home</a></b></font><BR> <tr><td align=center><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <br><br><br><br><br><br> <img src="/graphix/taupeflame.jpg"></td></tr> </table></td> </tr> </table> </table> <br> </div> </td> <td width="66%" height="65"> <div align="center"> <!----------------------- MAIN CONTENT ----------------------> <table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr> <td valign="top" colspan="2"> <td width="600"> <div align="left"> <br><br><br> <p align="left"> <img hspace="5" src="/graphix/united-methodist-church-h60.jpg" align="left" vspace="5" border="0"><br> <font face="verdana" color="#003300" size="4"><b>  The Meaning of... Love </b></font><br><br> <p align=center><font face="verdana" size="3"><b> 1 John 4:7-12, 16-18</b><BR> Crucial Words of Christianity Series #4 </font></p></center> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> Love. Is there any word in the English language more casually tossed around than  love ? I love my spouse, I love my children. I love that movie! I love Jesus. I love chocolate chip cookies and that first cup of coffee in the morning and Blue Bell ice cream. I love woodworking. I love my friends. I love my church family. I love my dog. I love you. How can you define a word that applies to so many different things? </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> For a few weeks I have been trying to define some of the crucial words of the Christian faith. I began with grace (the unmerited love and favor of God reaching down and out not only to the unlovely, but also to the unworthy), and then moved on to faith (giving as much of yourself as you understand to as much of God as you understand), and hope (a future certainty based on God s present reality). However, trying to come up with a definition for love has proven much more difficult. </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> In this series I m not so interested in how our culture defines the words as I am how our faith defines them. That s why I didn t turn to Webster s dictionary to find a definition. Instead, I turned to the Bible. Last Wednesday morning I took the time to read every verse in the New Testament that has the word love in it. It took awhile! I found a lot of verses that talked about the importance of love, the object(s) of love, the results and benefits of love, the attributes and characteristics of love (you know, love is patient, love is kind, is not envious or boastful, and so on), but none that explained what love was. Finally, near the end of the list I found what I was looking for, the one place in the Bible where love is clearly defined. Let s read it. </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> <b> 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. </b> (1 John 4:7-8) </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> Did you catch it? <b>God is love... That s i</b> That s the definition. What countless authors and poets and musicians through the centuries have tried to do, John had already accomplished by reducing the definition of love down to one word: Love is God! As hard as we might try, we can do no better. Only as we come to know God can we know love, for the two are inseparable. God is love. </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> That in itself was not a new thought to me. I ve certainly read that verse before, but this week I lived with it. I asked,  If God is love, what does that mean for me and what does it say about how I experience love? This is what I finally came up with: If God is love, then any experience we have with God will by definition be an experience with love, and any experience we have of real love will by definition be an experience with God. God is love, and so as God shares Himself with us, whether through grace or forgiveness or mercy or patience or any other way, we are experiencing love, for we are experiencing God. I want to suggest, then, the beginning of a working definition for love as we experience it here on earth: <i> Love is God giving himself to us... </i> </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> Listen again to these words: <b> Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God</b> <b>Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. Now let me go on:  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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. </b> (1 John 4:9-10) Friends, true love is God giving himself to us, and nowhere did he do so more completely than through Jesus Christ. God s gift of Jesus was a gift of himself, and therefore a gift of love. Love is God giving himself to us... </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> That, however, is only half of the story. In order to finish this working definition, I need to go one step further. As God gives himself to us (real love), we in turn have a chance to share something of God with others. Now I can complete my working definition: Love is God giving himself to us, and us sharing that gift with others. </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> Any experience which we describe by using the word love must reflect the nature or will of God, or it is not true love. True love desires the things God desires. True love acts like God acts. True love reflects God s nature. This is what John was saying when he continued in 1 John 4:11-12,16-17, <b> Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.... God is love. Whoever then lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him"</b> Earlier I said: Any experience we have of real love will by definition be an experience with God. True love isn t about our emotions or our desires or our hormones. True love, real love, is about God. 1 John 4:19 says, <b> We love because God first loved us. </b> t s about sharing the gift of God with others. As Jesus said in John 13:34-35,  A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. Once we experience God (real love) we can then start loving others the way we ve always wanted to, by sharing God s love with them and relating to them in God-like ways. </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> So, if love is God giving himself to us and us sharing that gift with others, then for our actions and feelings toward others to be worthy of being called love, they must reflect God s nature. Now you can begin to see why so much of what we call  love is anything but. For love to be real, it must reflect the character of God. Infatuation is not love, nor is lust. Abusing people or using them for our own gratification is not love, for none of that reflects God s nature or shares God with others. <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> In Col.3:8-10, 12-14 Paul told his readers, <b> Now rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self...</b> Why should we get rid of these things in our lives? Because they do not reflect the nature of God. <b> Therefore, as God s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. </b> </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> Oh, friends, do you see? It is real love - God! - who binds all the other virtues together in unity. When these virtues describe the way we relate to others, we will be loving them, for we will be sharing the gift of God with them. </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> Friends, never forget that God is love, and in practical terms that means that love is God giving himself to us and us sharing that gift with others. It may take a lifetime to get it right, but in every one of our relationships we can begin today. </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> Go then, and be a loving people. Amen. </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> </font></p> <p align="left"><font face="verdana" size="2"> </font></p> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> </table> <TABLE width=800 border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <TR bgcolor="#d8d2d8"> <TD width=800 valign="baseline" bgcolor="#d8d2d8" align=right> <!--- beige F2F2E6 ----> <font face="verdana" color="#000000" size="1"> This site designed and maintained by <a href="http://www.hipdogwebdesign.com">HipDog Web Design&reg;</a><br> Copyright 2005. All Rights Reserved.</TD> <TD width="19%">&nbsp;</TD> </TR> </TABLE> </td> </tr> </table> </body> </html>