BUILDING STRONG FAMILIES Part 1: Secrets of Love (Love Handles)

Romans 12:1-2 

So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.

John 3:16 

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 4:9-12, 16, 19 

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. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. We love because he first loved us.

The secret of love is being loved by God.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

The secret of love is being loved by God and then showing God’s love to others.

1. Say it.

2. Write it.

3. Give it.

4. Forgive it.

5. Live it.

Romans 12:15 AMP 

Rejoice with those who rejoice [sharing others’ joy], and weep with those who weep [sharing others’ grief].

Romans 5:5 

…the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts…

1 Corinthians 13:13 

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.