I. Most relationships fail when tested because they’re based on using another person to meet our needs for:

A. worth/validation/security/significance (because one isn’t getting approval and affirmation from following and pleasing God)

B. gratification/enjoyment/satisfaction (because one isn’t delighting in the Lord and His perfect will -Ps 27:4)

C. stimulation/excitement/companionship (because one isn’t living a life of faith in God’s revealed promises)

II. Barriers to True Love:

A. Eros: erotic, passionate, lust; strong desire for gratification, often without regard for another’s benefit, nor truth

B. Stroge: affection, like; friendship, mutuality of enjoyment, based on commonality of likes

C. Philos: brotherly love; based on commonality of experience

D. Agape: other-centered, self-sacrificial loyalty to do what is in another’s highest/best interest; God’s kind of love Jn 3:16

III. True Love starts with loving God, then ourselves, our neighbors, and our enemies

Mark 12:30  ‘And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. 31  "And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’...

A. A true love relationship with God (on His terms of truth) gives us worth and value, so we’re free to love rather than use others.

1Jn 4:7  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

8  He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9  In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10  In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (Rm 5:8)

12  No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.

B. A growing relationship with God gives us the model and supernatural strength to love as Christ has loved us

Eph 4:32 be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you. 5:1  Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. 2 Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints;

C. A mature relationship with God gives us the motivation to persevere when we don’t feel like it due to rejection

Mt 5:46  "For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

IV. True Love grows and glorifies God (our purpose for living) by boundaries of truth and discrimination

Phil 1:9  And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, (1Jn 2:15)

10  that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ,

11  being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

V. True Love is tested and perfected by trials and truth

1Cor 13:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long (patiently waits for what God has revealed is best See James 5:7)

and is kind; (easily forgiving, good and gracious even when undeserved See Lk 6:35;  Eph 4:32 1Pt 2:3)

love does not envy (jealously resent and want what another has See James 4:2)

love does not parade itself (boast at the expense of others to boost one’s inadequate self worth)

is not puffed up (proud, thinking of oneself as more than reality warrants 6/7 in 1Cor)

5  does not behave rudely (insensitive to the needs and best interest of others)

does not seek its own, (act independently for self gratification or self promotion cx deny oneself Lk 9:23)

is not provoked, (overlooks fault, irritations, insult rather than responding similarly)

thinks no evil; (does not plot revenge See Rm 12:17)

6  does not rejoice in iniquity, (find pleasure in self-centered unrighteous unreality 2Thess 2:12)

but rejoices in the truth; (find pleasure TOGETHER in revealed reality John 8:32)

7      bears all things, (preserves by covering {thatch} slights and violations of rights 1Cor 9:12)

 believes all things, (confidence or trust in the fulfillment of God’s revealed process and promises Heb 11:6)

 hopes all things, (steadfast expectation in meeting the requirements for the God’s promises  Rm 8:25 1Tim 4:10; 1Pt 1:13; 3:5)

 endures all things. (perseverance of difficulties encountered in awaiting fulfillment of God’s promises Heb 12:3; Js 1:12)

8 Love never fails. (dropping out of the race as a result of believing lies rather than the truth  2Pt 3:17; Rev 2:5)

11  When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

12  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love

Questions for Reflection/Discussion/Response:

1. Where do we get our ideas of what true love is? Why is it important to “sanctify” those concepts with the eternal Truth?

2. What part does romantic or emotionally charged love have in a relationship? What fuels a lifelong love?

3. What role does trust and loyalty play in a loving relationship? What happens when that trust is violated?

4. What happens when people mutually “use and abuse” each other? How can people avoid using each other?