Spiritual Growth Resources
Topic: Love

The Carmichael SDA Church is providing spiritual growth resources for individuals, couples, families, and small groups as an extension during this pandemic for a church that is scattered like salt and to indeed be salty; to be light and receive another infusion of power. Pick and choose from these resources for your spiritual growth, whether it’s during your time of personal devotions or family worship or small group gathering. The 10 options include:

The Beatles song “All you need is love” says it all. If that’s all we need why pursue anything else? Many seek power, fame and riches. Maybe all we need is love. Love is the foundation of everything. We could have had one topic that would be the most important topic and call it a day. We could preach one sermon and say that’s all there is to say. But love has many expressions therefore every topic emanates from an attempt to understand love and its expressions.
“God is Love” - that’s it! That could have been the only verse in the Bible, but we need to know what that love looks like, talks like, feels like. So here we are getting to the most important topic of all.

Out of all of the possible Bible verses and passages to study about love, I’ll choose 1 Corinthians 13. 1 Corinthians 12 talks about the diversity of gifts in the church. There seemed to be a controversy in the church over whose gifts were more important than others. Competition in the church is a recipe for potential conflict. The apostle Paul writes to the Corinthian church that the most important gift of all is love and if you don’t have love your other gifts really don’t matter. He isn’t saying the other gifts aren’t important, just emphasizing that if you’re going to elevate your gift to make yourself look better, then you’ve missed the point of spiritual gifts. Paul is calling for a beautiful balance between diversity of giftedness and true love for one another.

In the opening words of his letter to the Philippians, Paul shares a prayer founded in love.
Phil. 1:9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment,
Phil. 1:10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,
Phil. 1:11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.
This week you are invited to pray this prayer expressing your desire for someone else’s love to “abound more and more”. Paul loved his church members from Philippi. They were already loving people. But Paul considered it a blessing to pray for these loving believers. He wanted that expression of love to spill over even more so that they can continue to be a blessing to others just like they had been a blessing to Paul.
Think of someone or a church that has been so loving to you that you will pray this prayer for them. 
You can also pray this for yourself. Imagine Paul praying this for you. You are the recipients of this letter and you are reading it today. Imagine your love abounding more and more and as a result our knowledge, discernment, purity, righteousness increase. 
Pray that as we increase in knowledge, discernment, and other things, that our love is even greater - loving God with all of our heart, mind and soul and our neighbor.

Select from these questions, or let them prompt your own questions. You can reflect on these by yourself, or discuss them with another person or group of people.

The best way to apply this week’s topic is to love! Of course that’s easier to say than to do.
Love goes two ways. Receiving love and giving love. Sometimes it's reciprocated, but certainly not always.
Americans quickly think of romantic love, especially with Valentine’s Day on February 14 to spur that. Males traditionally give cards plus flowers or chocolates to the lady they love. What is expected in your love relationship? What surprises you? Are surprises good or bad when it comes to love?
Family and friendship love also have a multitude of ways to express love. And so does agape—the highest form of love, which comes from God and which we can give to others regardless of our feelings or the other person’s actions. It’s the only kind of love that can be commanded, and yet no one can give it without receiving it from God.
Perhaps the best place to apply LOVE is to receive it from God—fill your tank. Here are a few ways to do that?
Listen to love songs. While there are “religious” songs about love, most love songs can also be applied to our relationship with God. Check out the “Sing-Along” and “Inspirational Music” later in this collection of Spiritual Growth Resources.
Read or listen to Scripture. The Song of Solomon describes the passionate love between a man and woman, which most people consider to be a metaphor for our relationship to God. The “Love Chapter” (1 Corinthians 13) found in the “Bible Dialogue” portion of this week’s Spiritual Growth Resources in another good selection for meditations on love. So is the entire book of 1 John. Several Psalms relate to this. And check out Paul’s messages about love in Romans, such as 5:1-11; 8:35-39. Another basic message comes the the story in Luke 7:36-50 (especially verse 47).
Some people sense God’s love through nature. You might have direct access to some of that where you live or where you’re able to walk, bike, or drive. You can also access some beautiful nature videos online, such as this short one

• Less than 3 Minutes Long  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUN664s7N-c
• 13Minutes Long - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGm6YzBrxiI
• 3 Hours Long - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHACKCNDMW8

 Take the application challenge the other direction by giving the love you have received from God. Consider some tangible ways you could follow God’s command to love (not necessarily just because you’re feeling it right now):
 • Yourself
 • A relative
 • A friend
 • A church member
 • A stranger
 • An enemy

 Consider the five different “love languages” for communicating your love to someone else. If one of your love languages is “words of affirmation” you might think the would communicate love to someone else, even though their love language might be physical touch. You can take a quick quiz to identify your love languages at this link: https://www.5lovelanguages.com and then get creative at giving out the love!

One of the best witnesses to an unbeliever is our love toward other people. Loving those within our circles would probably be the basic place where love is expressed. To be able to love the unloveable would speak volumes of our faith, our beliefs and our love to God. Can you share your experience about loving someone who has caused hardship in your life?

John 3:16 was referred to earlier. When the opportunity presents itself to share your faith, why not default to John 3:16 and breakdown this verse piece by piece.
“For God so loved” - Since Jesus is speaking these words he’s dismantling the notion that the Old Testament God is mean and that Jesus (the New Testament God) is loving.
“The world” - we are part of this world. God loves all peoples. Not just the people in Israel or those who claim Christianity as their religion. God loves those who don’t even love him. God loves the most hardened criminal, the murderer, liar, thief, adulterer. For those who consider themselves as pretty good people who don’t have a crime in their record, God loves them too, but not because they haven’t done “bad” things. God loves them because God considers all people worthy of love.
“That he gave his only Son” - When you love someone you give them gifts among other things. God gave us himself in the person of Jesus Christ. God didn’t give us money, fame, or power. He gave us Jesus. Why is that such a big deal? Think of any religion in the world where God becomes a human and sacrifices himself for his creatures? It’s usually humans trying to attain a state of divinity to find their meaning. In Christianity, meaning comes from God becoming a human to lift us up as a race. We are fully ourselves when we are fully human. God gave us Jesus to show us what being fully human looks like.
“that whoever believes in him” - what does that mean, “believing in Jesus”? Just a mere belief gives me eternal life? The previous words are worth believing and if you do you are invited to experience an abundant life (John 10:10). Believing is not just an intellectual exercise. Believing is acknowledging that something is true and adjusting our lives in order to experience love to a greater degree.
“should not perish but have eternal life” - only under these terms would anyone want to life forever. Can you imagine what living forever would be like? It only makes sense if love is the driving force. Eternal life with a God who gives unconditional love. If we are willing to accept that kind of love, then we are on the path of eternal life.

Enjoy the variety of music that speaks of God's Love

1 John 4:19 (RSV) “We love because he first loved us.”

Love and Kleenex

My grandma used to hide Kleenex in her sleeves. It’s true - any time her nose or anyone’s nose would start to run, she would reach up her sleeve and magically pull out a secret stash of CLEAN Kleenex. I always thought this made her seem like a magician. No Kleenex anywhere to be seen. Then - boom! Kleenex mysteriously appears.

Whenever I hear the word “love,” I still always think of my Grandma. My sister and I used to drive across the Arizona desert to visit Grandma on Friday nights, when we needed a calm place to escape after the rush and madness of our busy lives. Grandma lived at the edge of a wild, open desert, where quail built nests in the tumbleweeds and giant saguaro cacti towered against the sky. We would sit on her porch and watch the sunset paint colors of bright burning fire across the Arizona sky - oranges and hot pinks and deep purples, in waves like a blazing sky-ocean. Not anywhere in all my life have I seen grander sunsets than the ones in Arizona.

We would watch the sky put on its sunset-show, and Grandma would talk about her life. She shared stories from the farm she grew up on in Iowa, chasing chickens and feeding the pigs. She laughed about the time a pipe broke in winter and they didn’t have electricity, so in the morning you could ice skate across the kitchen. She talked about taking hot bricks out of the fireplace and wrapping them in towels to put at the feet of their beds to keep warm. She talked about how she used to ride to school on the handles of Grandpa’s bicycle when she was a girl - every morning, he always rode by her farm to pick her up.

She had loved Grandpa for more than 80 years - almost all her life. She got in trouble when he snuck her out of her high school math class and took her to the movies for 25 cents. On Saturday summer nights, he took her to dances. Other days, when their work was done on the farm, they would sit on a bench overlooking the Missouri River and say nothing at all. They were just happy to be together.

Swinging in grandma’s porch swing in the hot desert wind, I would think of how I felt the exact same way. Whether we were talking or silent, I was just happy to be together with her. Grandma was the most loving and patient person I knew. She never got upset or angry, and she never kept track of how long it had been since we called or visited. She was always just happy to see us come.

When someone says the word “love,” what do you think of? Do you think of hearts and flowers and people kissing? Do you think of friends you love, toys you love, or the animal you love most? Do you think of Moms and Dads and sisters and brothers, Grandmas and Grandpas and families? Do you think of weddings, churches, God?  Is love quiet or loud?  What is love, if you had to explain it?

Paul wanted his church to love each other and be kind to each other, but so much of the time they were fighting and arguing. So when he wrote a letter to that church, he spent a long time explaining what love really looks like. I’m glad he did this, because today in our Bibles we can find this letter that tells us exactly what true love really is. This letter can be found in 1 Corinthians 13. Let’s read it together and see if we can solve the mystery of the true meaning of love!

Family Talk Time:

1.  Read 1 Corinthians 13 with your family. What did you learn about love? What part stands out to you most?
2. Does this chapter make love sound easy, or hard? Why? IS love easy - or hard?
   
3. Why does it say we can have all kinds of good things, but if we don’t have love, we are nothing?
4. Now replace the word “love” with the name “God,” and read 1 Cor. 13 again. What does this teach us about Who God is?
   
5. Thank God together with your family for how wonderfully He loves us!