Loving Others

Gaining a Godly perspective on love is essential. It allows us to effectively love God, love ourselves and especially love those who we perceive to be unlovable. Pastor Bill Clark starts our new series encouraging us to shift our perspective away from our own and to that of God. Loving Others SHIFT | Week 1 October 29, 2017 | Bill Clark 1 John 4:7-12 (NIV) 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. 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. 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. 1 John 4:17b-21 (NIV) In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. A fierce determination to engage others with an attitude of grace and forgiveness. If we’re going to be emotionally, spiritually healthy people, we have to love other people. In God’s way of thinking there is a shift unique to the Christian message. What we need to be are people who can disagree well.