We're using Psalm 139 as a reminder of God's incredible design of YOU. His attention and awareness of you. And we said this series was about growing emotionally and spiritually mature. *Quote: (Peter Scazzero - book: Emotionally Healthy Spirituality) "You can not grow to be spiritually mature, if you remain emotionally immature”…emotional maturity and spiritual maturity are not the same thing, but they are each others’ ceiling.

Tonight, we look into the emotion of LOVE. Now, love is one of those words that is hard to get a handle on. We only have one word for it in English. We're pretty sure we know it when we see it and experience it. But maybe it's deeper than we realize and more meaningful than we know.

The deepest desire of the human heart is for a love that will last.
Christian spirituality is relational to the core. The Great Commandment, the Second Commandment, and the New Commandment, Jesus reiterates that the measure of spiritual maturity: is love.

Love is more than a feeling or experience – it’s got action to it…
Love puts others needs above your own. Though the ‘emotion of love’ isn’t a character in the movie: Inside-Out, it is definitely on display. One clip highlights the action-oriented nature of real love and what the Apostle Paul emphasizes to us as followers of Jesus, in the book of Romans ch. 12.

3 loves. The Greeks had a large number of words for love. The most common word was the word Phileo. This word described the garden-variety love—the love you have for friends, for people in your family, for your country. There was another word for love that was very common in the ancient world—Eros. When translated into English, it almost always speaks of sexual passion, erotic love. However, it was used in a much wider sense by the Greeks. It basically spoke to the kind of love that is won from us in a moving moment you experience. When you come to 1 Corinthians 13, and you ask, "What is this thing called love?" Paul— along with other writers in Scripture—uses the GREEK word: Agape. What is strange about this word is that it's seldom used outside the Bible. What characterizes this kind of love is that it's not primarily a love of the emotions. Agape love is a mindset, an orientation of the will, a decision, action-oriented. Agape love determines that it will seek the highest good for other people

Agape love isn't primarily about feelings. It is a mindset. Agape Love (God-like love) is action oriented – other person focused. Agape love seeks the highest good of other people.

We might summarize: Spiritual maturity, not so much about how much you know...but about how well you love. And love that doesn’t flow out into the lives of other people isn’t love.

Love is our most mature act as human beings.
-Eugene Peterson

**If you look at the list in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a - you discover it has 16 phrases.
Paul lists 8 negative things that Agape love Doesn't Do: Love does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude. It is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. It does not delight in evil.
And Paul gives us 8 positives. Agape love DOES these: "is patient, kind, rejoices with the truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Agape love never fails."

The deepest desire of the human heart - is for a love that will last.
God's AGAPE love is an unchanging love - in the midst of a changing world. It's the love He has for you. It's the love He wants to grow within you.

This Week:
Look back at 1 Corinthians 13 – challenge you to take a few minutes this week to meditate/reflect on this chapter. The most amazing thing can be to replace the word ‘love’ with Jesus….listen as this is the love Jesus has for you. Now replace the word 'love' with your name; it's the kind of person Jesus wants to shape you to be like. More like him.
*LOVE is what we're celebrating tonight following service as some folks declare their love for all Jesus has done for them through baptism!

Need Prayer? ....we've got some of our prayer team and pastors available following service to pray with you. Or you can text the word "prayer" to our phone number: #520-300-9001 to submit your prayer request to our prayer team to partner with you.