Worship Focus 

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 Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church

July 13, 2014

 
Scripture Passages

  

Questions for
Reflection
 
Would you agree or disagree with the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians that between faith, hope, and love, the greatest is of these is love? Why?
 
As you read I Corinthians 13, list the seven characteristics of what love is and the eight that it is not. Which is easier/harder for you, to live out what love is or avoid behaviors that love is not? 
 
 

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Sunday's Message

Cultivating Self-Giving Love

in a Self-Serving World

 

The Rev. Dr. Stephanie Lutz Allen, preaching

 
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�Kevin Carden on creationswap
Summer brings many blessings--warm weather, vacation and longer days of light to enjoy the blessings. It is also the season of weddings, in which we often hear Paul's famous "love chapter" read as part of the service. Paul wasn't referring to marriage in the chapter, but to how people in the church need to use their gifts in a loving way. Come to hear a message on the passage known for weddings, but meant for all occasions.
 
Peace,
Stephanie

Theme for the Day
 
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�Michael Hickman on creationswap

Paul says to us, "Choose the more excellent way of love." Agape love is the power that moves us to respond to another's needs with no expectation of reward or return. It's love lavished on another without thought as to whether they are worthy to receive. This love comes from the nature of the one who loves, not from any merit in the beloved. Love that says, "I love you, not because of something great in you that I'm attracted to. I love because it's my nature to do that." God loves us this way. If we see this Christian love as a lofty obligation, we could feel crushed by it. We need to see love, not as a duty, but as a power, the power of God's love working in us and through us.

Scripture Passages

Colossians 3:12-14
 

As God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

 
I Corinthians 13
 

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.