As we wrap up our week on loving people, we look today at how we can love the church,

as God does.

Jesus says we will be known by the way we love each other.

Would people know you're a Christian by the way you love your brothers and sisters? People are messy. It's

true. We all are. And yet, Jesus saw our worth and loved us in the midst of our messiness. How can

you mimic that same love today as you seek to love his church? Today, we'll look at the

perspective and affections of Jesus for His people.

May our hearts and minds be transformed as a result.

Welcome to the First 15 podcast.

The words of Jesus in Matthew 6-9 radically changed the way God's people are to relate to him.

Scripture says, pray like this. Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name. Through Jesus, we now come before God as his child. And because God is our Father, fellow believers are now our spiritual family. Other disciples

of Jesus are our brothers and sisters. And Church is now a spiritual family reunion designed to be centered around the love and goodness of our father.

1 John 3.1 says, see what kind of love the father has given to us, that we should be called

children of God, and so we are. We have been brought into fellowship with one another because God loves us.

We are children of God because he longs to have the relationship of a father and his children with us.

In fact, God created the family unit to be an earthly reflection of God's heavenly family.

And scripture is clear that it is incredibly important that God's children love one another.

Colossians 312 through 15 says,

put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts,

kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one

another, and if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has

forgiven you, so you must also forgive. And above all

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