Rick Warren - It’s All About Love – Part Two

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope, the audio broadcast ministry

of Pastor Rick Warren. Today, Pastor Rick continues in a

series called Forty Days of Love. In these lessons, Rick

looks into the Bible to help you better understand God's

great love for you and to empower you to love

others the way Jesus does. But first, in just a bit,

we'll tell you how to get Pastor Rick's Forty Days

of Love Bible study with six video sessions and workbook.

It's perfect for individual studying and also great to do

with a small group of friends. You can take a

sneak peek by going to Pastorick dot com while you listen,

or just text the word hope to eight hundred, six

hundred five thousand and four. That's the word hope to

eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four. Right now,

here's Pastor Rick with part two of a message called

It's All All about Loves.

So during forty Days of Love, we're gonna have to

do some healing in your heart because you have been

hurt in life. You've been hurt by parents, or you've

been hurt by peers on school, or you've been hurt

by professionals. Are you been hurt by partners? Maybe some

of you have been abused, or you've been misused, or

you've been rejected, or you've been abandoned, or you've been betrayed,

and you've got some scabs on your heart, and we're

gonna have to do some gentle surgery on your heart

because you can't love others until you feel loved.

Let me say that again.

We're gonna have to come back to this several times

this in the next forty days. You cannot give to

others what you have not received yourself. You cannot give

to others what you don't possess. Unlovely people are unloved people,

Hurt people, hurt people. It's like a bottle of toothpaste.

When you squeeze a bottle of toothpaste, what's going to

come out? Whatever is inside it. And if you're filled

with anger and you're filled with impatience and you don't

feel loved, guess what, You're not gonna be able to

love anybody else. So you have to learn how much

God loves you and experience that and let it heal

your heart so His love can flow through you. It

is impossible to love others until you really feel love yourself.

So during forty Days of Love, we're gonna work on this.

We're going to experience it, and I want you to

feel the love of transforming love that comes from God.

First John four sixteen says this, we know and we

rely on the love that God has for us. Do

you know the love of God? And do you rely

on the love of God for you? If you don't,

you have a hard time love on other people. Oh,

it's easy to love people who love you, that's no problem.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about loving the unlovely,

loving the difficult, loving the irritable, loving the people who

are different, who are demanding, loving people all around you

who you don't feel like loving. You can't do that

until you have God's love coming through you. Love happens

because we are loved by God. Now, Number two, the

second thing that the Bible teaches us is that love

is a choice. Love is a choice and it is

a commitment. It is a choice and it is a commitment.

You choose to love or you choose not to love.

It is a choice.

You see, today, we've bought into this myth that love

is uncontrollable, that you really can't control it. It just

kind of happens to you. No, that's not true. Love

is a choice and love is commitment. In fact, even

the language we use is this language that it's uncontrollable.

We say I fell in love like it was a ditch,

you know.

I was just walking along.

One day and I was like coman, you know, I

fell in love.

I couldn't help myself. I'm sorry I fell in love.

That's not love. Now.

Attraction is uncontrollable, no doubt about it, and arousal is uncontrollable,

no doubt about it. But our attraction and arousal are

not love. They could lead to love, but they are

not love. Love is a choice. This last week I

don't get to do weddings anymore, But this last week

I did a wedding for my personal associate, my assistant, Steve,

and he and his fiancee Nicole stood right here on

this stage and they made choices, and they made commitments

in and their vows.

They said to each.

Other, I choose you above everybody else in the world,

and I choose you for the rest of my life.

That's a choice, and that's a commitment. Now, you can't

force somebody to fall in love with you, and you

can't force them to stay in.

Love with you. Why Because love is a choice.

Love cannot be forced, and this is true of all relationships.

It is a choice. Notice this verse Deuteronomy, chapter thirty.

Choose to love the Lord your God and commit yourself

to him. Now, that same principle there is true about

all relationships. You must choose to love God. God is

going to force you to love him. You can fund

your nose to God and go a total different way.

You can destroy your life if you want to. God

won't force you to love him because love can't be forced.

Love is a choice.

But, as it says, choosed, I have chosen to love

God and I've chosen to commit myself to him.

It's the same thing with everything else.

I choose to love you, and I choose to commit

myself to you.

Love is a choice and is a commitment.

Now, when people say, well, I just don't love her anymore,

as if you don't have any choice, No, just be

a man, own up to it. You're choosing not to

love her anymore. Given the right circumstance, any two people

could quote fall in love. But love is a choice,

and you can choose to love anybody, and you can

choose not to love anybody. So when you say, well

I don't love him anymore, I don't love her anymore,

Well that's your choice, but don't blame it on circumstances.

You are choosing not to love. It's a choice. Number three.

Love is an action, not just emotion. Love is an action,

not just emotion. Now, as I said, it's more than

a traction, it's more than a rouse. It's more than sentimentality.

You know today the songs of love are. You know,

I've got to quiver in my liver. You know, it's

an ocean of emotion. Well, when the emotion is gone,

does that mean love is dead? No, not at all,

Because love is an action, it's something you do. Love

is a behavior. Now, love can cause emotion. In fact,

it causes the strongest emotions in human beings. It can

create emotion, It can cause emotion, it can produce emotion.

But love is not an emotion. Why why do you

say that, Well, in the first place, in the Bible,

over and over, we are commanded by God to love

each other. And you cannot command an emotion. If I

told you right now be sad, well, you can't just

be sad on cue. You can fake it, but you

can't command you know. Have you as a parent, have

you ever told a little kid, I command you to

be happy.

I'll try you, daddy.

You just can't command an emotion. Emotions are often uncontrollable,

and if love was just an emotion, then God couldn't

command it. But love is something you do. It produces emotion,

but it is an action. In fact, the Bible says

this first John, chapter three, verse eighteen. Let us love

not with words or tongue, in other words, just talk

about it, but with action and in truth. You know

you can talk a good action. So oh, I love

people I love, But do you really love them? Let's

see how you act toward them. It's like the girlfriend

who said to her boyfriend, you know he's always saying,

he said, honey, I die for you, I die for you.

She said, you always say that, but you never do it.

You're listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope Rip will be

back in just a moment with the rest of today's lesson.

If you've missed any part of today's teaching, you can

listen online anytime at Pastorick dot com. That's Pastorick dot com.

Jesus said there's nothing more important than loving God and

loving others. That's why Pastor Rick created the Forty Days

of Love Bible Study that comes with a six session

DVD in workbook. In these sessions, Rick helps you understand

how deep and wide God's love is for you and

reveals how you can enjoy happy and successful relationships with

others by focusing on the spiritual principles of patience, kindness, truth,

and forgiveness. This resource is perfect for personal study, or

you can invite a few friends over and do it

in a small group setting. And today, when you give

a gift to share the love of Jesus with people

here and around the world, Wilson to you Pastor Rick's

forty Days of Love Bible Study to say thanks. Get

yours now and experience more fulfilling relationships as you live

a life powered by the love of Jesus. Go to

Pastorick dot com right now to get your copy, or

you can call eight hundred at six hundred eight five

zero zero four that's Pastorick dot com. Or call eight

hundred six hundred at five zero zero four. Thank you

so much for your support, and don't forget to let

us know which radio station you heard us on.

Now back to more from God's Word with Pastor Rick Warren.

You know you can talk a good action, so oh,

I love people I love, But do you really love? Well,

let's see how you act toward them. It's like the

girlfriend who said to her boyfriend, you know he's always saying,

he said, honey, I die for you, I die for you.

She said, you always say that.

But you never do it.

Love is something you do. Now, let me say a

couple of things about love and action. Actually, acting in

love when you don't feel it is the highest form

of love. It's actually a more mature love when you

act loving toward a person when they're not responding to

you or you don't feel it. I mean, it's easy

to love somebody who loves you. That's nothing, that takes

nothing at all. But real love acts and does the

loving thing when they don't deserve it, when they don't

respond or when you don't feel it. Anybody who's had

children knows that when they're growing up as babies, as

little babies, and you get up five or six times

in the night to take care of.

That little baby. You don't do it because you feel

like it. I think I'll get up again. I've had

too much sleep.

I think I'll just get up again and go check

on that baby. No, you do it because you feel

like it.

No, you do it because it's the loving thing to do.

Anytime you've held a sick pen for a loved one

who was nauseated, you didn't feel like doing that, but

it's what they needed, and you were being loving when

they were sick. You were giving them what they needed,

not what you felt like doing.

That is the ultimate form of love.

When you are patient with somebody who's irritable, a clerk

who's being a jerk, and every bone in your body

wants to be sarcastic back to them, and you respond

in kindness and politeness and in love to that clerk

who's being a jerk, and you're giving them not what

they deserve, but what they need.

That's love.

When you do the loving thing, when you come home

at night and you're as tired as everybody else is,

but you do the loving thing not because you feel

like doing it, but you do it out of love.

That's ultimate love. Does that make sense? So love is

an action more than an emotion. In fact, the Book

of James James says, you know, if you do all

this big talk about love and all this talk about faith,

but you don't follow it up with actions, it's worthless.

What good is that? It doesn't matter. The second thing

I'd say about love is action, is that it is

always easier to act your way into a feeling than

it is to feel your way into an action.

Let me say that again.

It's always easier to act yourself into a loving feeling

instead of waiting for the feeling to come and then

you're going to act loving. Some of you have been

in marriages for a long time, and the truth is

the flame's gone out and the thrill is gone, and

you're living separate lives in the same house. How do

you rekindle that romance? How do you rekindle the feeling

of love? You act your way into a feeling. Now,

if you say, now, when I don't feel like acting

loving toward him, well so what or I don't feel

like acting loving toward her? If you start acting in love,

I guarantee you the feelings follow, because feelings follow behavior.

In the Book of Revelation, Jesus says to the church,

you have left your first love, and then he says

three things. So remember what it was like at first.

Repent.

That means change your mind and do the things you

did at the start. And what he tells the church

is the same thing for renewing the love in a

marriage or any other relationship. You remember, you repent, and

you do the things you did at first. The reason

the love went away is you stop doing the things

that created the love feelings in the early days. Now,

if you say, well, I wait till I feel romantic

to be romantic is never going to happen. It's kind

of like prayer.

You know.

If the only time I pray is when I feel

like it, the devil makes sure I never feel like it. Actually,

I need to pray when I don't feel like it.

In fact, that's when I need it the most. When

I don't feel like praying, that's when I really need

to pray. And actually, when I don't feel loving. This

is a test. God is saying, are you going to

learn to love me and to love other people when

you don't feel like it. God doesn't want you living

by your feelings. He wants you living by faith, so

you know what he does. Sometimes he lets the feelings

go away, and then you have to love by faith

and live by faith. And when you love somebody and

do the loving thing, even when they're not responding, and

even maybe when they're retaliating, you are loving by faith.

And that is an action. You act your way into

a feeling, not vice versa. Now you say, well, I

don't feel very loving, Well, so what just do the

right thing during the forty Days of Love.

That means we're going to have some practical assignments for

you to do.

You don't learn to love by listening to a sermon,

and you don't learn to love simply by reading a book,

and you don't learn to love simply by going to

a small group and discussing and watching some videos. Those

are all helpful things, but you actually learn to love

by practicing it, by doing it. And so we're gonna

have some assignments for you to do each week to

help you practice learning how to love.

And that brings me.

To the fourth thing the Bible teaches us about love.

The Bible says that love is a skill. It is

a skill, it's something you can get good at now.

You may think you're a good lover, but I'm talking

about becoming a great lover, a skilled lover, a master lover,

learning to love. Like most people never learn how to love.

Love is a skill that can be learned. I can

learn it. Did you know that? Did you know that

love can be learned? And you can get good at it,

and you can get better at it, and you can

become an expert at relationships. And God wants you to

become a skilled lover. We want our church to be

known as the most loving church around. We don't want

saddleback Church to be known for, well, that's the big church,

or that's the church that has the good music or whatever.

We want that people say, that's the church where they love.

And they don't care who you are or what you

look like, or where you've been or what you've done,

or where you're from.

They love you there.

And not only do they love you there, they teach

you how to love. And So what we're going to

do for the next forty days is.

Have some lessons on loving Now.

The Bible says this and one John four seven, Dear friends,

let us practice loving each other circle the word practice.

The only way you get skilled at something is you

practice it. You do it over and over, and the

first time you do it feels awkward, and the more

you do it, you get better and better at it.

Same as to you with love.

Let us practice loving each other, and we're going to

practice during these forty days, for love comes from God,

and those who are loving and kind show that they

are the children of God and that they're getting to

know Him better. He said, it's proof that you're really

a believer, that you're in the family of God, that

you're saved, he says. The proof is that you love

other people. He says, let us practice this skill. Now,

we're going to practice that. In fact, in one Timothy

four fifteen, let's read this one aloud. Together, practice these

things and devote yourself to them in order that your progress.

May be seen by all.

In just a minute, we're going to set up a

little example of how we're going to measure our progress

between today and between the end of the forty days

of purpose journey, because I want you to be able

to see your progress in love if you will do

the things that we ask you to do during these

forty days, not just to tend and listen. But if

you'll do all the different assignments, I guarantee you will

become a better lover. You will become a more loving man,

you will become a more loving woman. Your character will

be transformed, and you will see your progress. But it

says in order to see that progress, it said, you've

got to practice, and you've got to devote. You've got

to make the commitment to do it, and you then

you have to to practice it.

Now. The fifth thing.

That the Bible teaches about love is that love is

a habit. It is a habit. You can't claim to

be a loving person unless you are habitually loving. See Basically,

your character is the sum of your habits.

Let me see it this way.

If you only love off and on like a light switch, Boom,

i'm gonna love that person. Boom, I'm not gonna love

that person. Boom, I'm gonna love that person. Boom, I'm

gonna not love that If love is a light switch,

which you are not a loving person. Now you may

think you're a loving person, but love happens when you

love the unlovely. Look at this verse on the screen.

Luke six p'int thirty two. If you only love those

who love you, what credit is that to you? In

other words, well, big deal, big whoopee. The point is

you think I'm a loving person because I love those

who love me, I love my family. That's not being

a loving person. Being a loving person is when you

love the unlovely, when you love people who don't love you,

when you love people who irritate you, when you love

people who backbite against you, who gossip about you. Anybody

can love people who love them. That's no that takes

no character at all. Shoot, a dog can love that

kind of love. You pet the dog, you feed the dog.

Guess what it all? Wag it's tail. Okay, you don't

feed it, you don't pet it. It's going to learn

something else, But it is. God says love must become

a habit.

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. If you've missed any

part of this message, or if you'd like to find

out more about Pastor Rick Warren in this ministry, just

visit Pastorick dot com, where you can listen online anytime.

That's Pastor Rick with two rs inthemiddle dot com, and

be sure to sign up for Rick's free daily email

devotional while you're there, Rick will be back in just

a moment. But first, Jesus said there's nothing more important

than loving God and loving others. That's why Pastor Rick

created the Forty Days of Love Bible Study that comes

with a sixth session DVD and workbook. In these sessions,

Rick helps you understand how deep and wide God's love

is for you and reveals how you can enjoy a

happy and successful relatetion reationship with others by focusing on

the spiritual principles of patience, kindness, truth, and forgiveness. This

resource is perfect for a personal study, or you can

invite a few friends over and do it in a

small group setting. And today, when you give a gift

to share the love of Jesus with people here and

around the world, We'll send you Pastor Rick's Forty Days

of Love Bible Study to say thanks. Get yours now

and experience more fulfilling relationships as you live a life

powered by the love of Jesus. Go to Pastorick dot

com right now to get your copy, or you can

just call eight hundred six hundred five thousand and four

that's Pastorick dot com. Or call eight hundred, six hundred

five thousand and four. Thanks so much for your support,

and don't forget to let us know which radio station

you hurt us on. Here's Rick with a letter from

one one of our listeners.

I love the letters that you send to me. Here's

one from a guy named Mike. He says he's learning

so much from Daily Hope that he wants to pass

it on to others. And here's what he writes, Rick,

I've been reading Daily Hope devotional since two thousand and nine.

I started listening to the Daily Hope audio teachings daily,

and sometimes I listen to three or four per day.

Wow Wow, Mike, he says. With the cup of coffee

in my hand and Daily Hope in my ear, at

the beginning of every day, I just feel uplifted.

You know.

Oftentimes so I'm pretty convicted, but I always come away

knowing that my father in Heaven loves me. Mike writes,

you know, last September, after listening to your daily messages

on the Forty Days of Love series, I ordered that

series and I have listened to it six or seven times,

and I am so impressed with all the truth in

this series that I'm going to be ordering a series

for each of my children and a special friend of

mine that's Christian, but because of upbringing, is having difficulty

understanding the love that God has for her. You know,

part of your relationship with Jesus is being able to

tell your life story to others, to let them know

how God has transformed your life. Did you know that

when you share your story of transformation and hope, other

people get blessed as well. So tell somebody today about

God's work in your life. I want you to just

think about this. Who could you tell your story to today?

Just think about that and then do it. God bless

you and thanks for listening to Daily Hope.

If you'd like to let Rick know how this broadcast

has blessed you, please feel free to send him an

email at Rick at pastorick dot com. That's Rick at

pastorick dot com. Be sure to join us next time

as we look into God's word.

For our daily hope.

This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and

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