"Series Introduction: Love School" (Gal 5:22-24, Luke 10:25-37)

Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast! Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at how the Spirit of God transforms our relationships. We don't want to just dispense relationship advice, but hope to show you the gospel in a way that actually transforms character and empowers wisdom. Over-focusing on the earthly gifts of relationships can become idolatry. Focusing on the creator and giver of these gifts (and what he intends for you through them) leads to freedom and fruitfulness wherever you are (Psalm 1)! This week, Sam explains the new series and shows us that how the Gospel leads us into the true life of love our heart, soul, mind, and bodies are designed for! We learn that, for those who have put their faith in Jesus, love is not a way to life, but a way of life.  “Every person is a heart-soul-mind-strength complex designed for love. .. We are ….. primed before we were born to seek out others, wired neurologically to respond with empathy and recognition, coming most alive when we are in relationships of mutual dependence and trust. Love calls out the best in us—it awakens our hearts, it stirs up the depths of our souls, it focuses our minds, it arouses our bodies to action and passion. It also calls out what is most human in us. Of all the creatures on earth, we are by far the most dependent, the most relational, the most social, and the most capable of care. When we love, we are most fully and distinctively ourselves.”- Andy Crouch “And yet I decide, every day, to set aside what I can do best and attempt what I do very clumsily--open myself to the frustrations and failures of loving, daring to believe that failing in love is better than succeeding in pride.” ― Eugene Peterson