Surfing the Inner N8

At CrossWay Church yesterday we reached the halfway point in our study of 1 Thessalonians.  For week 5 of the Real Life series, we talked about Living in Love.

If you watch TV or read the paper, you might get the idea that loving someone is about taking what you can get from them.  But the Bible talks about love in terms of giving.  According to Scripture, love is an act of selflessness, of putting others first.

We read 1 Thessalonians 3:12-13; 4:9-10 and 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a.  The Thessalonian passages tell us that God makes our love increase and overflow, and that we are to grow in love more and more.  In 1 Corinthians we learn specific details about what exactly love looks like.

It’s interesting that in this 1 Corinthians passage, one of the Bible’s most famous sections on love, we’re not given a defintion of love.  We’re not even given an explanation of what love feels like.  Instead we’re told what love does and doesn’t do.  Love is an action.