Learning to love perfectly through a step-by-step process provided for us in the bible.

1. LEARNING TO LOVE
God, You and Others

2. We All Desire Love
We want attention
We want to be accepted
We want a boyfriend or girlfriend
We want our friends to like us
We just want to be loved

3. We Are All Capable Of Love
We invest huge amounts of time into acquiring love
Our culture is based on this whole concept
Buy this and friends will like you,
drink that and you’ll be more sexy
We try to find love in other people
Does that truly fulfill us?

4. There’s an Order to Perfect Love
This is a cool little ephiphany I had
There is a step-by-step process to love
It is found in the bible - the love story of God for us
God always chases after us
Are we going to chase after God?

5. Mentioned In Three Gospels
Matthew 22:37
Mark 12:30
Luke 10:27

6. Mark 12:30-31
Love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul and with all your mind
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
Love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no commandment greater than these.

7. The Most Important Command
What is a command and why should we listen?
This is the most important command that Jesus gives!
All the other commands are “summed up” into this!
Do you trust God?
Then do what he says - James 1:22

8. We Have To Love God First
The crucial step we always forget
We fast forward to trying to love others
We need to be able to love the unseen
before we love the seen
You can’t intellectually love someone
This is the basis of perfect human love

9. With All Our Heart
Think about your first love...
You overlook faults, distance, hardship, compatibility
You just want to spend every waking hour with them
You don’t want to hang up the phone
This is not rational or logical

10. With All Our Soul
What is a soul anyway?
Who would be your perfect soulmate?
It’s someone you think you knew your whole life
Do we get to the point of soul bonding with God?
Do we share his heart and desires?
Or do we put God in a box?

11. With All Our Mind
Most of us let our mind get in the way
The greatest chain that bind are in our own mind
If we try to love with our mind first, it won’t work
Once we use our minds, then it makes sense
God doesn’t want us to love him blindly

12. With All Our Strength
“Strength” is mentioned in two of the three gospels
We allow the mind to control our body
Love is not a feeling, it is an action
We must strive to make love tangible and relevant
But how can we tangibly love God?

13. Love Yourself
So we have to love God first
To love others, we must first be able to love ourself
When we love God, we receive love back
We have to fall hopelessly in love with God
Have you forgiven yourself?
Are you truly able to love yourself?

14. Love Others
Love increases as it releases
Without love, we are nothing
Our lives become quickly meaningless without love
We must love unconditionally and selflessly
When we love the “least of these” we love God
There is power in true, agape love