1. Transforming Love Transformed by Experiencing Scripture Key Scriptures: Ps 119:105: Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path. (NIV) Mt 22:37-40:Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (NIV) Romans 8:33-34: Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. (NIV)

2. Transforming Love Key Themes: God’s heart is to reveal Himself and His love to all of humanity. This truth is seen from Genesis to Revelation. The Scriptures provide our boundaries for living and our security for “right believing”…but there’s more. The Bible is God’s love letter, written in order to draw us in to a deepened love with Him andothers. The Bible provides life to us as it invites us into a closer relationship with the living God.

3. Transforming Love I. Scripture reveals to us the riches of God’s love. The Bible was given to us by God, out of His great love, to provide direction for our lives. This is one way that God reveals His love.

4. Transforming Love II. Scripture reveals to us the security of right beliefs or doctrine This is the Rational Purpose of truth. God’s Word lights the way as we look for truth and what we are to believe. For example, we know that there are some who claim there are multiple ways to heaven and eternal life. But Scripture declares “salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under Heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). God’s Word shows us and illumines what we are to believe.

5. Transforming Love III. Scripture reveals to us the security of right living. This is the Behavioral Purpose of Truth. In a day when immorality and materialism, selfishness and corruption are the norm, Scripture challenges us that we can be “in this world, but we must not be of it.” (see John 17:11,14). God’s Word lights the way for relationships when it shows us that we are to do nothing from selfishness, forgive one another, accept one another and love one another as Christ has loved us. God’s Word illumines how we are to behave.

6. Transforming Love IV. Scripture reveals to us how we should relate. This is the Relational Purpose of Truth. 1. We experience the relational purpose of truth when God’s Word leads us to a deepened love for others. 2. We experience the relational purpose of truth when God’s Word leads us to a deepened appreciation for God’s love toward us. 3. We experience the relational purpose of truth when God’s Word leads us to a deepened love of God and expression of love for Him.

7. Transforming Love V. Scripture reveals priority of love. Christ came to “re-hang” Scripture back onto the commands of loving God and others. Upon these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets, and all of the History and Writings of Scripture (Matthew 22:40). Therefore, God hopes that as we come to experience more of His Word we will walk away having been transformed by our love from Him, for Him and for those He loves.