Amen

IOI CHRISTIAN MEAL
TOPIC: HOW TO SHOW LOVE AND RESPECT TO OTHERS

TEXT: John 13.

Introduction
The Bible says we are to love one another. Sounds good, but can we do it? Whoever said, "I love mankind; it's people I can't stand," was about right.
People are just irritating. I agree with the guy who said, "To live above with those we love, oh, how that will be glory. To live below with those we know, now that's another story.
Even people at church can be difficult to love. Sometimes we sing a chorus in church: "I'm so glad you're a part of the family of God," and then we look at the person beside us and sing, "I'm surprised you're part of the family of God."

Sometimes it's hard enough to love our own family. One guy told his wife that if she had really loved him she would have married someone else.
How do we make love a dominating characteristic of our lives?

I. Make love a priority

Indeed loving people is difficult. Yet this is what the Bible commands. "For this is the message you have heard from the beginning: we should love one another" (1 John 3:11). We spend time on what we deem important. For many of us these choices are valid: time with family and friends, work, prayer, serving the poor, fighting for rights, protesting wrongs. But as the Scripture reminds us, "And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing" (1 Cor. 13:3).

Even though we have the freedom to set our own priorities, Jesus made a point of defining certain ones of them for us: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and most important commandment. The second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself'" (Matt. 22:37-39). Love, then, is not a gray area the Scriptures. Jesus gave love priority over all other Christian virtues. Every thought, response, and act of goodwill must first pass through the fine filter of love, or it means nothing at all.

In "Strength to Love", Martin Luther King, Jr., encouraged us to realize that "our responsibility as Christians is to discover the meaning of this command and seek passionately to live it out in our daily lives." But why love? What makes it so important?

II. Understand the importance of love

When Jesus spoke to the disciples regarding the first and second greatest commands, he explained that "All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands" (Matt. 22:40).
To the people of Israel, as well as for many believers today, it would seem more logical for obedience to be the peg from which the Law hangs, since the point of writing a law is adherence to it. And it is written, "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15). Yet Jesus also said, "I give you a new commandment: love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another" (John 13:34). The apostle Paul goes on to tell us "Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love, therefore, is the fulfillment of the law" (Rom. 13:10).
This may sound irrelevant to our generation that depends on police departments, guns, and force to uphold and fulfill the law. Yet Jesus' simple command requires greater strength than any of us naturally possess - more power than any man-made weapon.
The logic of Paul's interpretation of Jesus' command that love fulfills the Law seems equally simple. For if one loves his neighbor, he will not commit adultery with his neighbor's spouse. If he loves his coworker, he will not lie to him. And if loves his enemy, he will not slander him. Love fulfills the law, because if we truly love every person because he is a person, we will not desire to hurt or violate him or her, thus never break the law. God established love as the impetus for obedience.

PRAYER
MAY THE TRUE LOVE OF GOD BE IMPARTED TO US IN JESUS NAME