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Determine to Love

LoveGodLoveOthers

I am finishing up reading a book titled Broken-Down House by Paul David Tripp. One of the last Chapters is titled Determine to Love. Below is my "book report" on part of the chapter.

Tripp uses 1 John 4:9-11 to help us understand what love really is and what it practically means for us to love others. I have added verses 7 and 8 as well, below. It reads.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Tripp makes two simple statements that beautifully summarize the passage. First, he said "God's love rescues us from self-love so that we will be able to love others." Second, he answered the question of how love should function by saying love is "willing self-sacrifice for the redemptive good of another." He didn't stop there, though. He ended the section by listing many practical ways that love should shape our lives. I will only list a few...

  • It means not keeping yourself so busy with you and yours that you have no practical time to love others.
  • It means being committed to knowing people, because you can minister only in very limited ways to those whom you do not know.
  • It means being willing to have your life complicated by the needs and struggles of others.
  • It means being willing to share your physical resources with others.
  • It means being willing to live with an open home.
  • It means actively looking for places where you can function as one of God's tools of love.
  • It means making life decisions out of this inescapable call to love.
  • It means being willing to have your schedule and plans interrupted or altered.
  • It means paying attention to the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of the people God puts in your path, and looking for ways to help them bear these burdens.
  • It means being perseverant and patient even when the love you give is not returned.
  • It means understanding that the call to love is a call to both word and deed.
  • It means daily remembering Jesus, being in awe of the gift of his love, and living thankfully.

My take away is this: Love is sacrificial and love is intentional.

Travis (mostly Paul)