1 Corinthians 13:1-7
New Living Translation
Love Is the Greatest
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I had the gift of prophecy and understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains but didn’t love others, I would be nothing.
3 If I gave everything I had to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it, but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.
Love is patient and kind.
Love is not jealous, boastful, proud, or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
I have a confession: I am sick. I think it’s terminal. I believe the disease I have is going to cause my death.
Infected by love!
No matter what people say or do, I’m infected.
And this Love I speak of is very contagious. You know how disease spreads.
Love is contagious; most people will accept it, so they can’t believe it when they see it.
“The Love of God does not consume us because we don’t live right; he consumes us till we live right.”
Are you Infected by love?
Does the love of God matter to you? Does the joy of others take precedence in your life?
The Love of God has no room for selfish people. We are not like the world; the fire of his presence
1 Peter 2:9 NKJV
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.
In 2020, a deadly disease struck the world; most of us didn’t even believe it was real until it struck us. COVID almost killed me. It took my precious mother; yes, this disease killed 3.3 million people.
The infected carried the deadly disease where the wind couldn’t.
Once released to the population of the world, it spread, and fatality after fatality gripped our nation.
All you had to do was say COVID, and we literally shut down.
I thank God for the Brave souls who weathered the storm of COVID, nurses, and doctors who did all they could to save our lives.
The poor seemed to not be the object of the government’s affection. Jesus, our savior, came to a world infected with another disease called sin.
There would be no shot, no pill, and no cure for the plague called sin.
Jesus on the cross, in the greatest act of love, gave his life for mine.
He arose three days later, defeating sin, and ascended back to heaven, and very soon our savior is coming to take his church to glory.
The love of Jesus will consume you until you are perfect.
God does not fill you with his spirit because you are not right; he fills you with his spirit to make you right.
His presence is a consuming fire.
Satan is going to pay a price for what he has done to us.
2 Peter 2:4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment,
Hell” comes from the Greek tartaroo, and it means “a place of restraint.” God did not spare the angels, but He cast them down to a place of restraint, a kind of prison.
Jude 1:6 New Living Translation
And I remind you of the angels who did not stay within the limits of authority God gave them but left the place where they belonged. God has kept them securely chained in prisons of darkness, waiting for the great day of judgment.
If you follow Satan, this will be the path you choose, and this will be the eternity you choose.
You can tell those who love Jesus that they love each other because Jesus is love.
1 John 4:16–16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.
Are you infected with love?
I John 2:15–17 Do not love the world or the things in it. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world.
2 Timothy 3:1-7
New King James Version
Perilous Times and Perilous Men
1: But know this, that in the last days [perilous times] will come:
2 For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good,
4 traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!
6 For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts,
7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Are you infected with love?
Revelations 20:14-15
14: Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second [d] death.
15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
What’s described in verses 14 and 15 is nothing less than the final, complete accomplishment of total victory over sin.
The judgment is complete. Now Death and Hades are cast into the lake of fire. Unbelievers spend their lives following the will of the Devil.
Ephesians 2:1–3 reminds Christians that prior to salvation, they were dead in trespasses and sins. Sin characterized their lives, and they followed Satan, the prince of the power of the air.
Also, they lived in the passions of the sin nature and were the children of wrath. However, in a remarkable act of love, God showed mercy and saved them by grace, turning their wicked lifestyle into a beautiful one (Ephesians 2:4–10).
This verse in Revelation calls the lake of fire “the second death.”
The first death is physical. Upon death, the soul is separated from the body, and the unbeliever continues to be separated from God.
At the second death, the resurrected body is joined to the soul, and both are separated from God for all eternity.
At this point in time, all sin and evil have been judged and punished, either in hell or by the sacrificial blood of Christ (John 3:16–18).
The human is a creature who is ruled by what he follows.
What and who are you following?
If you’re following Jesus, you’re following love, but if you’re following hate, the second death is what you’re following.
Come follow the love of God and leave hate behind.
You selfish thing, I know you deserve this; you have worked for it, you devoted your time to it, and you followed it.
Luke 16: 19-26 The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and lived sumptuously every day.
20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate,
21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 So it was that the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried.
23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 “Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’
25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.
26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’
Jesus is a consuming fire!
Jesus does not consume us from within because we don’t live right; he consumes us until we live right!
You say those folk live to be Christians for Jesus. Some of you are looking for your identity. Your Identity isn’t what you discover; Jesus is your identity.
Infected by Love