Home Church Video ~ “Love is…” ~ Part 11 ~ “The Ultimate Life of Love”

Our home church had quite a discussion about the reasons that our English translations of “love” do not do justice to the Greek word, “Agapè”, which is the key word in describing how God’s children relate to one another.

This love is distinct because it is “goodwill arising from a personal moral good rather than attraction”.[1] In every other kind of love, we are free to focus on a select group (family, friends, marriage) based on what they mean to us. However, in agapè love our interest is the good of all people.

This message is a synopsis of what God has taught us in I Corinthians 13 about what agapè love is like, and the conclusion, “Let all that you do be done in love.”[2] This can only apply to this distinctive expression and experience of God’s love, and so we must understand the way God is working this into our lives.

The fact is that we cannot do everything in family-love because not everyone is family. We can’t limit our expressions of goodness to friends because then how would we ever love our enemies as Jesus taught us? And we certainly can’t have self-centered marriages where we only care about the person we are married to because we are part of the body of Christ and have something we have been given to minister to others.

In this conclusion to our “Love is…” series, the ultimate life of love stands out very clearly, and invites us to trust God to make it as real in our lives as he would like. He wants us to know the joy of being just like him in his love.

© 2019 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] This has been our working definition throughout the series.

[2] I Corinthians 16:14

Home Church Video ~ The Grace, Love and Fellowship of the Triune God

If someone wanted to relate to us in a grace that seeks our good above concerns for the gracious person’s benefit, we would have a rare gift.

If someone began relating to us in a love that sought out what was best for us without regard for how much it would cost to make it happen, we would have a level of care that is almost unheard of.

If someone wanted to walk through life with us in a fellowship that was always making sure our needs were expressed to the powers that be, so to speak, and that the work for our good of the powers that be was communicated to us for our hope, we would have a friendship that anyone would want. Right?

And if there was one relationship in which we could experience all three of these together at the same time always, wouldn’t that just blow a person’s wrong beliefs about themselves right out of the water?!

That someone would like to relate to us with grace, love and fellowship would be remarkable enough. However, when we consider that the Triune God who created us not only desires this, but works incessantly to bring it about, we have an invitation into the safest and most satisfying relationship we could ever know.

Join our home church as we explore how, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” can “be with you all,”[1] and how it is available for the receiving.

© 2019 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] II Corinthians 13:14

Home Church Video ~ When Expectations and Obligations Meet Faith Working Through Love

I have often had people cringe at the consideration of the expectations that are a necessary part of our walk with God. Sometimes this is because they interpret God’s expectations through a works-based filter. This results in a fear-based sense of judgment that God is a Father who always finds fault with us since we can never perfectly meet our obligations before him.

Other times, the resistance to any kind of expectation or obligation is because people already know they don’t want to keep in step with the Spirit so they don’t want to be reminded of all the things the Spirit is doing to lead us to walk with God. As with the world, people in the church love the darkness (silence about what is right) because their deeds are evil, and they don’t want to stop what they are doing.

Still others recoil from any hint of an expectation or obligation because they struggle with addictive behaviors and are told by worldly authorities that they can’t handle expectations or obligations because they will drive them back to whatever addictive coping mechanism they rely on.

Whatever the case, the child of God does not need to deny the expectations and obligations of life as a beloved disciple of Jesus Christ, nor do they need to burden themselves with a legalistic and works-based view of such things. The same grace that saved us through faith is working to teach us to do what is expected of life in God’s kingdom by faith.

In this home church video, we take a good and encouraging look at how to view the expectations and obligations of our new life in Jesus Christ. As expected, God’s grace leads the way so we can join God in his work by faith that expresses itself in love.

© 2019 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Home Church Video ~ “Love is…” ~ Part 10 ~ “The Supremacy of Love”

This video is the concluding message on our series through I Corinthians 13. Our focus has been on what agapè-love[1] is and is not,[2] but with the introduction of the first three verses telling us that we are nothing without this love,[3] and now the conclusion of the last six verses showing how this agapè-love is supreme over all other ways of doing things.[4]

When God’s Book communicates that the distinctive agapè-love of God is supreme, it is in the context of what we learn about spiritual gifts.

However, God is not asking us to choose between doing things in love or doing things through our spiritual gifting. Rather, he is showing us that the ways we express ourselves through our spiritual gifts has a “more excellent way”[5] to it when everything is done in this agapè-love.

Join our home church family in considering how God doing everything in agapè-love towards us gives us everything we need to cover everything we do in our own expressions of this agapè-love. When agapè-love guides us in everything we do, our expressions of spiritual gifts in ministry become the most excellent way to build-up one another in love.

© 2019 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] ἀγάπη (Greek) agapè (English) ~ Our working definition of agapè-love has been: “goodwill arising from a personal moral good rather than attraction”. It is different from all other loves in that it operates out of God’s love for us not out of anything good or bad in another person. We do not love our enemies because we are attracted to them, but because God has poured his enemy-loving love into our hearts through the Holy Spirit whom he has given us (Romans 5:5).

[2] I Corinthians 13:4-7

[3] I Corinthians 13:1-3

[4] I Corinthians 13:8-13

[5] I Corinthians 12:31

Home Church Video ~ “Love is..." ~ Part 9 ~ "Love Handles Everything"

As we look at the concluding description of the agapè love of I Corinthians 13, we find the apostle Paul telling us that this love can handle anything that happens to us. Since this love is something that fills us because of God’s love for us, it isn’t the way we are treated by people that dictates how we respond, but the way we are beloved of God that enables us to love even our enemies.

Join our home church in looking at how the agapè love from God, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”[1] And then join with other believers to help each other put such things into practice.

© 2019 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

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[1] I Corinthians 13:7