Saturday, January 27, 2007

Bible Study on Love: Colossians 3:14

Here is a Bible study outline on Love:

Col 3:14

14 Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.


God’s Love for us

John 15:13

13 " Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends

Rom 5:8

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

John 17:26

26 and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

Rom 5:5

5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

We are to be rooted and grounded in love, greater than knowledge

Eph 3:14-19

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,

15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name,

16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,

17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

We cannot be separated from God’s love

Rom 8:38-39

38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are commanded to love our brethren

Eph 5:1-2

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;

2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

1 Cor 16:14

14 Let all that you do be done in love.

2 Cor 5:14

14a For the love of Christ controls us,

John 13:35

35 " By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Love allays fear, Christ loved us, we are to love brethren

1 John 4:18-21

18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.

19 We love, because He first loved us.

20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

Love includes keeping God’s commands

John 15:9-10

9 "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

10 " If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.

Love is to treat neighbor well, is not in contradiction to the law

Rom 13:10

10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Gal 5:22-23

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,

23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Love commands us to serve one another

Gal 5:13

13 For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Love builds up

1 Cor 8:1

1 Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies.

Love is the evidence of faith

Gal 5:6

6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

Love helps us to achieve unity

Eph 4:1-3

1 Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called,

2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love,

3 being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace

Unity

“Unity” has concept of perfection or completeness

Christ as perfect example of unity and perfection

Heb 12:2

2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

God desires us to be in unity

John 17:20-23

20 "I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;

21 that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

22 "The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;

23 I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.

Unity of faith, everyone working together, not everyone identical

Eph 4:11-16

11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,

12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;

13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;

15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ,

16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love

We are to dwell in unity

Ps 133:1

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is

For brothers to dwell together in unity!


In closing reflect on the fullness of love from 1st Corinthians chapter 13

1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered,

6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part;

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

All quotations from the New American Standard Bible courtesy of PC Study Bible

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