Five pillars to build on the Foundation that Christ has already laid:
- The first thing is the word of God.
- Love. (I'm going to focus more on love and Fellowship.)
- Evangelism.
- Prayer.
- Holiness.
Our focus today is on love. Jesus Christ talked so much about love more than anything else. Love is the most important thing. It is the foundation of Christianity. Unfortunately, today in the church we struggle to find it. Moreover, our society has the wrong concept of it.
Many of us think love is what you feel towards somebody, and that's just part of it. However, love is defined by three things:
- It's a commitment
- You cannot talk about love unless you commit. Marriages today suffer because people jump into it to test if it works. When you tell someone I love you, you mean that, "I am committed to you; I accept you the way you are. No matter what happens, I'm not about to change because I have chosen you among the others."
- God committed himself to us. We are not the ones who chose Him; He chose us. His love for you is constant. There is nothing you have ever done to earn that love and nothing you'll ever do can stop Him from Loving you. Not even sin can stop Him from loving you.
2. It is what you do
- it is not what we say but what we do. True love has to be demonstrated by what we do.
3. It's what you give
- God loved us that he gave. Love is about giving and not taking. As human beings, we want to take. We get into relationships thinking about what is in it for us. What am I getting out of it? Yet God wants us to give because it is His nature to give.
It is not easy to love like God unless He helps us. We don't have that ability. We are very selfish as human beings. We want to love ourselves. But if we allow God in our lives, He can teach us to love others.
True love is so rare on this earth people are looking for genuine love. I believe as we get closer and closer to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the things that God is pouring into His church is genuine and authentic love for one another. People will experience love, feel safe and have a sense of belonging.
