Optimizing Your Love

Love is Primary – 1 Corinthians 13 – If I don’t have love, I am nothing.

• Love is the frame within which all Christian activity must fit and the scale upon which such activity is weighed.
• The purpose of today’s message is to provide a tune up. To give biblical insight for optimizing our love. In other words, living in relationship with others in a biblical, mutually-healthy way.

1. Accept all kind words and deeds as gifts from God.

“Every good and perfect gift comes from above” James 1:17

• These gifts often come to us through people.
• The things I face in life are my “bills” and any contribution from someone else is a gift!
• Every contribution others make to my life is a gift, not an obligation.
• Christmas every day if we receive the things others do for us as gifts and not as our due.
• Gratitude is riches! It’s not what we get that makes us rich; it’s what we appreciate.

2. Enlarge your personal care network.

“You are those who have stood by me in my trials” Luke 22:28

• Jesus disciples were also His care network but not all in the same way. Different people offer different gifts and meet different needs. No one person can meet all our needs.
• A recipe for frustration is trying to get one person to be everything.

3. Let your specific love requests be known.

“Stay here and wait while I go over there and pray” Matthew 26:38

• Very specific request from Jesus.
• No one can read our minds.
• Hinting is not effective.

4. Respect the other person’s right to say “no” to your requests.

“Now about our brother Apollos: I strongly urged him to go to you with the brothers. He was quite unwilling to go now, but he will go when he has the opportunity” 1 Corinthians 16:12

• We don’t own anyone. No one belongs to us.  People are not always able to say “yes” to our ideal.  Healthy love accepts this.
• We belong to Jesus. But even He doesn’t force His will upon us.

5. Respect your own right to say “no.”

“I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent” Luke 4:43

• You don’t have to agree with arrangements that are not agreeable to you.
• You cannot say yes freely unless you feel the freedom to say no.

6. Speak the truth in love. – Ephesians 4:15

Romans 12:1 – “Love must be sincere; without hypocrisy.”

• Do not consent and resent.

“Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body” Ephesians 4:25

• Translation over Interpretation – When there is a misunderstanding between two people, one of the keys to effective resolution is accepting each other’s translation of his or her comments or actions over our interpretation of them, without assuming there is manipulation In other words accepting what is meant over what was said or
• Conflict is like dynamite. It can be used constructively or destructively. It can clear obstacles, or it can destroy bridges. It depends on the skill and intent of its users.

7. Understand that some needs can only be met by God.

“On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” John 7:37

• There are thirsty places within us that only the Lord can fill. People can be kind.  They can be generous.  They can be sacrificial.  But they cannot always be “enough.”
• “For [The Lord] satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.” Psalm 107:9