Week 7 – What is Love?
Nick Lees   -   March 12, 2025

Full Discussion Guide

Please note that our primary goal with these classes is not to produce content that is designed for online use. Meaning the audio is recorded from a mic that picks up the whole room and has only received a minimum amount of editing afterwards. We hope that what is provided will still be a blessing to you if you choose to listen!

Class occurred on 3/12/2025.
Audio used with permission by PaulTripp Ministries.

Here are some items that may be helpful for your review as we head into session 8 and 9. (Note: Due to snow cancellations, I had to send session 8 via email.)

KEY IDEAS:

  1. Indulging the sinful nature is destructive to your marriage.
  2. You have the ability to say “No!” to sin because the Holy Spirit resides inside of you.
  3. Marriage problems are always fixed vertically before they are ever fixed horizontally.
  4. When we don’t love God enough, we insert ourselves in his place and fail to love our spouse in the way we should.
  5. Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not demand reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving (a cruciform definition of love).

SCRIPTURE PASSAGES

Galatians 5:13–15 (ESV)

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

1 John 4:7–11 (ESV)

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS:

  1. Am I humble enough to confess that I don’t love God as much as I claim I do?
  2. How can I grow in my love for God? How can I remember his love for me and water the soil of gratitude?
  3. What elements of my schedule do I need to give up in order to deepen my relationship with God and my spouse?