What is Love, and what it isn't!

This week we kicked off a new series at Awake called Love In Between the Lines. We'll look at dating, marriage, sex and this week Love. Micah kicked off the series with a little pop song medly tribute to love!

We started our discussion by talking about all of the reasons we get into a relationship. From attention, a kiss, self-esteem or for to "fall in love," we all have our reasons. The problem is that sometimes, in our pursuit of all of these things we make a relationship our number one priority. We fall into the same trap that man has fallen into since the garden.

Romans 1:25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.

We've exchanged the God who is enough for us for the relationship that could never be enough. We've started worshipping each other instead of our Creator!

The problem is that in our culture we call a lot of things "love," but most of them aren't love at all. We label any strong emotion or new feeling love, but they leave many of us hurting, broken and in pieces. There are three things we often mistake for love.

1. Like. It's the butterflies in your stomach and the sweaty palms. Nothings wrong with "like" but it's not love. It's fresh, it's the spark, it's fun, but it isn't love.

2. Infatuation. Sooner or later we all end up there. It's the place past like where we temporarily loose our minds. It's the hours on the phone, the ignoring of friends and family and the late night texting. It's a natural part of a relationship, but it's dangerous. It's the phase where we are temped to dethrone God and replace the King of Kings with a person.

3. Lust. Whether physical or emotional, lust is a strong desire for something. It's the moment that we find ourselves craving more. For guys it often tempts us to take things just a little bit further. For girls it's the need to be the most important thing in his world. We lust for more intamcy, more attention, more time and ultimately more worship.

So what is love? Well, the Bible gives us a great picture in 1 Corinthians 13. It's a long list of things that are far from emotions, they are choices. Choices to put the other person first and ultimately a choice to never fail. Love isn't a feeling or an emotion, it's a commitment!

*We had a little difficulty with the podcast so I had to re-record it in my office. Not quite the same as speaking to an audience, but it's there if you want to check it out!*

Comments

[Danielle]

I remember this sermon from back when I was a sophomore, so glad you're doing this series again - it totally changed my perspective on things and I hope it does the same for this generation of the youth group (:

[Justin Fluhr]

One generation at a time!