Dare to Love

Join us on Sunday mornings as we continue in the sermon series based on 1 Corinthians 13 through May 31. Many of you memorized Romans 12 for the sermon series, “Authentic Christianity.”  Perhaps you’ll want to try memorizing this famous love chapter (see it below from the New Living Translation) during “Dare to Love.”   

It has been a blessing to hear how God is at work in our church, as many have shared with me about how they are growing through personal devotions, small groups and being challenged by the messages on Sunday morning.  The Gateway Church family is becoming a more loving congregation!   There are only two more Sundays for this series.

Sunday, May 24, "Hang in There." "It [love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." I Cor. 13:7, 8a

Sunday, May 31, "This Works." "Three things will last forever - faith, hope, and love - and the greatest of these is love." I Cor. 13:13

            I John 3:1 says,  “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God!” Here is how He wants us to lavish love on others:

1 If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. 3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

 4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud 5 or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. 6 It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. 7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

 8 Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever! 9 Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture! 10 But when full understanding comes, these partial things will become useless.

 11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

 13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

(1 Corinthians 13)