In this enriching episode of Classic Christianity Radio, Bob George delves into the profound teachings of love as defined by God. Through an intricate analysis of agape love—God’s unconditional, forward-moving action towards us—listeners are invited to reflect on their own lives. Bob challenges us to evaluate the true essence of our faith beyond mere actions, urging an internalization of love as God exemplifies it.
00:00:12 Introduction and Transformation through Love
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.
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And so he’s saying if you have faith… If you can speak in all the languages of heaven and earth, don’t have love, you’re a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains but don’t have love, I am what? Nothing. That’s a big zero. In the eyes of God. Now, are you something in the eyes of us? That ooh, ooh, wow. That guy must be close to God. He moved a mountain. But not God. They may impress you, but he ain’t impressing me. I’ve given you everything you need, including love. I’ve given you everything you need for life and godliness. That means that this love, he’s given it to us. The issue is, are we going to access it? The whole issue is, I’ve got it. Am I going to use it? Because the conflict there is the flesh, isn’t it? So he says, if I give, now you’re talking about these givers. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames. In other words, become a martyr like Joan of Arc. Don’t have love, I gain nothing. If she didn’t have love, she may as well have saved herself some pain. If you don’t have love. That’s how God judges things. Not in what you’re doing, but what’s in your heart. What’s in your heart. Now he goes ahead to explain what love is. Love is not a feeling. Love is an action taken on behalf of another. Love is a forward action. It’s an action of God towards you that was not intended. I love you if or I love you because it’s just I plain love you. There’s no reason for it. I just love you. It’s called agape love. God’s unconditional love. It’s a word that was not really used in the Greek language. Phileo was used in a Greek language where we got our word Philadelphia philanthropic. It means brotherly type of love. And then the word eros, of course, is a Greek word that you know what that all means, but that’s not used in the New Testament. But agape had to be developed. It had to be brought into the language. And it’s that unconditional love of God for you and me. And so he’s saying here that love is this action. Love is always patient. Now, guys, when you’re dealing with this passage, if you’re talking about love, then who is love? God. So you can very easily read this, that God is always patient with you. Now, is that good news? Are we always patient with one another? God is always patient with you. God is always kind to you. God is never envious. God’s never boastful. God is never proud in his dealings with you. God is never rude. God is never self-seeking. He’s always looking out after your interest over and above even his own. God is never easily angered. God keeps no records of your wrongs. Is that good news? No records of your wrongs. Now, how does that tie in with this thing where, you know, God’s got his list up there. And one of these days when you lucky people die, you’re going to get to go to heaven. And the big old camera is going to show on that screen up there. And it’s going to show the whole world and all the angels, everything you’ve ever done or thought. Isn’t that good news? And no one and no one wants to go. It’s wrong. He doesn’t keep any records of your wrongs. What did God do with all your sins, guys? All of them. What did he do with them? Put them behind his back and never see them again. So there’s no records of your wrongs as far as God’s concerned. To me, that’s wonderful news. Now it says that he keeps no records of your wrongs. He never delights in evil, but he always rejoices in the truth. He always protects us. He always trusts us. He always hopes the best for us. And God always perseveres with us. We saw the history of his perseverance, didn’t we, with Israel? thousands of years that he persevered with Israel. He’s still doing that today. Love never fails. Now, so when we’re looking at analyzing, in essence, how are we doing in our Christian life? How are we progressing in our Christian life? If what he says, it started with love, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you and I responded to initially? Somebody told you that God loved you. Great news. God loves you. Has a plan for your life. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. We responded to the love of God. So we started with love. And we’re to end with love. But what happens in between? There’s a gap. So I look at that and I say, well, if this is God’s definition of love and this is how he loves me. But it seems to me that what he’s saying here is this is how I’m to love others. So when we’re sitting around thinking about how we’re doing instead of thinking about how many buildings we’ve built and how many of this we’ve done and. and how many programs we have, and how we entertain people, and what a great orchestra we have, and all this, this, and this, and this, and this, and this. Let’s get back to what God said is important, and that is, how are we doing in this so-called love department? And so we start, unfortunately. I am always patient with everybody. Especially Amy. And the ones we know and love the best. I’m just really patient with them. Do we need to go on or can we stop here? Have we squelched eternally our spiritual growth? Or should we go on? I am patient with everyone. Guys, let us face reality. That flesh of ours… is not patient with anyone. And I’ve said before, if you look at what is the opposite of agape love, it’s not hate, it’s pride. The opposite of agape love is pride. I am always impatient. Pride is always impatient because pride says, I am always right. And if I am always right, that means you are always wrong. And that is nothing but pride out of control. Because God says that we’re not in a position of determining right from wrong, good from evil, that that’ll be his job. But we gather a lot of facts and say, these are the facts that I’m right. And then some people say, don’t confuse me with facts. Well, mine’s already might up. it’s just something i feel this is the way it is because i feel that way a lot of marriages came from that and a whole bunch of divorces came from it as well because you think you feel something patience i am always patient i am always kind to everyone this is killing me on the radio Did I tell you about the guy? I don’t think I did. Last week a guy called in. Said, Mr. George, he said, I don’t want to be rude or anything, but… He said, you know, I’ve been wanting to get to your conferences out here for a number of years now. He said, I listen all the time and I really want to get to those conferences and really like to get to one. But every time I get ready to get to one or to sign up, something happens that keeps me from it. And he said, what I’m afraid of, he said, as old as you are, I’m afraid you’re going to die before I get to a conference. I said, well, thank you, brother. I appreciate that. You just have kicked off a new marketing strategy for our ministry. Get to the conference before he croaks. Love is always kind. Love is never envious, especially if someone gets a promotion. I don’t. I just love that. I never boast, never sit around talking about things I’m proud of and my accomplishments and those things. I never do that. I’m never proud. Never. And I’m never rude. I’m never proud. I’m never self-seeking. I’m always looking out after your interest over and above mine. I’m never easily angered. Especially when someone calls in with a dumb question. Just love them to death. Love keeps no records of wrongs. I don’t keep any records of any of your wrongs, especially Amy’s. Guys, do you realize that we have filing cabinets full of those things? And we use them when we need them? I mean, it’s our most logical offense. that if you go too far, I’m going into the filing cabinet. We have them filed by category. Amphibetized. Instant withdrawal. Don’t keep any records of wrongs. Oh man, this is painful. Love does not delight in evil. Always rejoices in truth. Hate anything that’s evil. It’s basically a common off-color joke. I hate them. Always rejoice in the truth even when Amy tells me something about myself that I need to know. I say thank you sweetie for that. Especially when she tells me how to drive. Thank you for doing that. Just a joy to be around. I always protect others, always trust others. I mean, it wouldn’t enter my mind not to trust somebody. And think about that, guys, about how many people we don’t trust. Always hope the best in others and always persevere with others. Well, how do we do? That’s God’s test for us. How do we do? Anybody want to stand up before God and say, here I am, you lucky thing? No.
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Now that’s God’s test, you see. Now do you know why we ignore it? Do you know why there’s no teaching on this? That this is a criteria. Guys, look at that. We can’t do it. We can build buildings, guys. We can have programs. We can have choirs and orchestras. I mean, we can do all the stuff. And everybody oozing odds over. And God is saying, I could give a flip about all of it. What I’m interested in is how are you doing in the love department? How are you doing? And I have to say, not real well. He says, why aren’t you doing real well? Well, because I stopped trusting you. I stopped trusting you on these things. I let some of the thinking of the world get in where I think I know it all. I let those kind of thoughts creep in. Don’t you? You know where it says, don’t consider yourself more highly of yourself than you are? And sometimes we do. We let the old flesh get in. And we ruin relationships with it. We squabble with each other. Why? To be who’s right. I mean, think about the arguments that you’ve ever had in your marriage. What are the most of them over? I’m right. No, I’m right. No, I’m right. Well, you know, that’s a street to nowhere, isn’t it? That’s why I say until we put Jesus in the middle of our marriage, you’re always going to be in that situation. Because hopefully you’re a man and woman. And we are different. And so you’ve got, that’s a man thing and this is a woman thing. Well, then you’ve got a problem. But you don’t have a problem, you say, but we also have a Jesus thing in our marriage. So it’s not what would the man think or what does a woman think, but what does Jesus think? What’s his attitude? And that’s the only thing that’s going to save a marriage, is to go back to Jesus instead of, this is the way I believe. But guys, when you’re looking at this thing, if that doesn’t convict us, something’s wrong with our spiritual life. Because the issue is I can sit around and play with these things and say, well, you know, it says to witness and I witness and I pray. You know, that’s why prayer is so emphasized in a Christian life. It’s something you can do. You don’t have to be saved to do that. You just pray up a storm, can’t you? That’s why everybody does it. That’s why the emphasis there, very little emphasis on Bible study, getting to know anything. So if you don’t know anything, what are you praying? Stupidity. Dumb thoughts expressed to God with dumb words. If we don’t know anything. So we have self-witnessing. I can do that. Memorize scripture. I can do that. Come to church. I can do that. Give. I can do that. How about love? Love. then you pull that one off. Does anybody in here pull that off in the energy of your flesh? Is there anyone in this room besides Bob Christopher that is always patient and always kind? Think about it, guys. And this is what God says is the only thing that counts. Is God losing his mind? Or is this the only thing that counts? You see, all these things don’t mean anything if we’re not kind to each other. We have people in the body of Christ that try to mess people up, screw each other around, cheat each other, lie to each other. Shouldn’t be. Most honest people on the face of the earth ought to be Christians. People don’t lie to each other. People don’t try to mess people around. Should be, but it’s not. But it can be. If we’re walking in the newness of life, it can be eagerly desiring the gifts that count to the uplifting of the body. You see, guys, in essence… I think we go down to verse 12 down there is a great verse to look at. Now we see but a poor reflection is in a mirror. Then we shall see face to face. I really believe that as much as we think we know about something, that it’s like looking at it in a blurred mirror compared to what it’s going to be when one of these days we’re going to be absent from the body present with Lord and seeing him as he is and becoming like him. So there really is not much need in us getting all puffed up in how much we know because I think what he says, whatever you know, it’s like a foggy deal compared to what you’re going to know. And I think that’s what should keep us humble, so to speak, that as much as we think we know, we’ve got so much more to know and understand. So he said, now I know in part. This is Paul talking. I just know in part. Then I’m going to know in fullness. I’m going to know everything. So that’s another thing to look forward to. Is we’re wanting to be so right all the time. One of these days you will be. But it’s only after you die. So really I guess if you really want to be right all the time. Pray for death. Because that’s the only time that’s going to happen. But then I’ll know fully. And even as I am fully known. I am fully known by God. But I do not know fully all the things that God has revealed. Only in part. Now these three things remain, faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. And guys, that’s a triplicate. I remember when I was writing our Bible study book on love, and I thought, well, that’ll be a real easy one to write. That’ll be the easiest one of the group to write. And so I sat down, and I could not write that stupid thing. I struggled with that and struggled with it and struggled with it and struggled with it. And in love, got mad, impatient, everything else, in writing my love book. And it was there that I realized, hold on a minute, every time Paul is talking about this, he calls faith, hope, and love. It’s a triplicate. And realized the fact that how can I have true love apart from true faith in Jesus? Yes. And how could I have true hope if I don’t have hope in Jesus? So there isn’t any way to have one without the other. That’s why it’s a triplicate, faith, hope, and love. That all ties in together. And my faith in Christ Jesus and my hope in Christ Jesus will produce love in Christ Jesus and also love one toward another. And so we have to understand the truth of these things, guys, and to realize that when I look at this list and I say, well, some days, yeah, there’s some patience. Well, good, you’re walking in the Spirit. And not only impatient, some of those days are kind and don’t envy or boast. All are good, Bob. You walk in the Spirit that day. Next day it may be totally different. That’s why we’re called a variable. And he’s the constant. Now, what do you think God does when he sees us walking in the flesh? Do you think he beats us to death or chastises us? Or do you think that he brings us back to this? See, I think that if we’ll use this as the plumb line of Christian behavior, to use this to come back to. Because don’t we all know when we’re out of sorts? We all know that, don’t we? We know we’re acting like jerks. Now, not Bob. He hadn’t experienced that yet. But one of these days, maybe. No, no, no. She just threw up. We all know that, and we know we’re acting a certain way, and for some reason we just want to hang on to that instead of stopping at that moment and say, hold on a minute, that’s not of God. That’s not of God. We want to hang on. It’s that old pride. We don’t realize how prideful we are, do we? That’s why I say the very opposite of agape love. It isn’t hate, it’s love. It’s pride. We are very prideful people. And so use this, my friends, as our plumb line. in our lives when we’re interacting with our mates or with other people just say was that response that I had was it patient was it kind if it didn’t well then that’s what God is there for us to correct that and he says I know it Bob you don’t have to tell me that it wasn’t of love I knew that but let me show you what love is and get back to the heart of God get back to the heart of Christ Jesus and learn To love people with the love of Christ. Our pride says, that’s dangerous. Somebody’s going to take advantage of me. So what? Seems to me they took advantage of Jesus, didn’t they? Let’s pray together. Father, we want to confess to you that when we look at these things, we fall short. We fall short. But you know that. That isn’t a surprise to you. But we are so prone to substitute, to say, I can’t do that, so I’m going to move on. And I’m going to brag about the things that I can do. And he said, no, I’m not going to let you do that. I love you too much to have that going on. I’m going to pull you right back to what love is. And I want you to live in that love. So, Father, we thank you for this reminder, and we pray that by your Holy Spirit that you’ll continue to lead us. And whenever our hearts get cold and selfish and rude and self-seeking, touchy, always keeping records of people’s wrongs, we’ll know that we’re not walking in the Spirit. We’re in the flesh. And that’s dangerous because Satan controls the flesh. But God controls the spirit. So it’s just not where we’re walking. It’s who we’re walking with that’s scary. So teach us not to be content there. And to turn from him who hates us. To the one who loves us perfectly. That’s Christ Jesus our Lord. And it’s in his wonderful name that we pray.
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Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord. Find more information online at bobgeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs and Bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.
This episode challenges listeners to examine their beliefs about forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life. Bob George questions prevalent misconceptions,…
