Love (Monday night recap)

Well, Valentine's day was on Monday this year so the logical thing to talk about at Youth Group was "Love"!

We started by talking about what most people are thinking about when they think of Valentine's day.  Cards, Chocolate, Flowers, and being romantic.

An interesting thing that we did before my message was play a game of charades.  We took the candy hearts and the teens had to act out the words on the hearts (don't worry, we took out the bad ones!).  But before the game began, we had them each act out an emotion.  They were: Bored, Anger, Love, and Pride.  The interesting thing was that if the people didn't cheat and "draw" a heart, acting out Love was by far the hardest emotion to portray.  That led nicely into my lesson for the night!

I asked the question, "What does love look like?".  Does it look like the picture to the left?  That's what most Sr. High students equate with the word love!

I also asked "How can we see love?", and, "How do we find love?".

Of course, I had to bring my lovely wife Kim up front and share about our love for each other!  (I also presented her with her flowers and chocolate - score one for Chris!)  But seriously, I touched on several different points about our relationship and they were:

1. After 14 years of marriage, I'm still madly in love with my bride!
2. She makes me a better person!
3. She accepts me for who I am, and as I am!
4. She knows ALL my weaknesses, faults, and imperfections and she STILL loves me!

Kim & I in 50 years!!!

We then looked at our main portion of Scripture - 1 John 4:7-16.  The main verse that I looked at was verse 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.".

This passage in 1 John answered all the questions that I posed before!  We find love and see love in the God that IS love!!!  God in His very being IS love (1 John 4:8).  When we realize how much God loved and loves us it is truly humbling!  Because all four of the statements that I made about Kim, are true about God as well.

1. After 17 years of being a Christian, I am still madly in love with my Savior!
2. God definitely makes me a better person!
3. God accepts me for who I am, and as I am! (no perfection needed to be accepted)
4. Most importantly, He knows all my past, current, and future sins - AND YET HE STILL LOVES ME!!!

That, my friends is love.  When we become a Christ follower and allow Him to flow through us, we will show to this world such radical love that they won't know what hit them!  They will have to stop and wonder why we would love the way that we did!

But why isn't that happening?  I think we all know that answer.  It isn't happening because all of us, myself included, DON'T love consistently like God does!  Probably because we CAN'T love like God does.  My challenge was and is that we would allow God to flow through us.  That we wouldn't keep a record of wrongs.  That we would turn the other cheek.  That we would love sacrificially the way that God did and does.

We can see love!  We can define love!  It is all wrapped up in one picture...