God's love for mankind
Love is one of the attributes of God and an essential part of His nature:
Love is one of the attributes of God and an essential part of His nature:
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.( (1 John4:16)
Our relationship to God is like the loving relationship between a child and parent. Like a loving parent, God knows and cares deeply for each of us:
Like children, some of us return God's love, and some do not. Nevertheless, He loves all of us. God's gifts of love and salvation are freely offered to all, even to those who choose the path of wickedness instead:
He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ( Matthew 5:
Love the Lord your God
Jesus said our most important responsibility in life is to love God:
Jesus said our most important responsibility in life is to love God:
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' (NIV, Mark 12:28-30)
We demonstrate our love for God by obeying His commandments and Jesus' commandments (Luke 11:28, John 14:21-24, 2 John 1:6), putting our trust in Him (John 14:1), maintaining a humble attitude (Matthew 18:1-4, Luke 18:9-14), and by prayer (Matthew 6:9-13, Luke 18:1-8).
Related verses: Matthew 6:24, Matthew 7:2, 10:37 , Luke 6:46-49, Luke 11:27-28, Luke 18:15-17, John 6:28-29, John 6:66-69, John 12:44, John 14:15
Love your neighbor
Our second most important responsibility in life is to love other people. Jesus went on to say,
Our second most important responsibility in life is to love other people. Jesus went on to say,
The second is this, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:31)
In His Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus explained that we should consider all the people of the world to be our "neighbors." Just as God loves all His people, so should we. Jesus calls us to extend our love even to our enemies!
You have heard that the law of Moses says, "Love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and on the unjust, too. If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that. But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:43-48)
The apostle Paul said that Christian love is the greatest and most essential of all the spiritual gifts. Even faith is worthless without love!
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. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)
Paul went on to describe the nature of true Christian love in this beautiful passage:
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... And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (NRSV, 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, 13)
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God is the source of all our love. Loving God and loving other people are so interrelated that we cannot have one without the other:
We love because he first loved us. Those who say, "I love God," and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (NRSV, 1 John 4:19-21)
Related verses: Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 5:21-24, 5:38-39, 6:14-15, 18:21-35, 22:34-40, 25:31-46, Luke 6:27-31, 6:38, 10:25-37, John 13:34-35, 15:9-13, Romans 12:10 , Galatians 5:13-15, 5:22-23, James 2:8-9, 1 Peter 4:8-10, 1 John 4:7-21
Jesus greatly expanded the scope and importance of love, saying love of God and love of fellowman are the most important of all the commandments. The apostle Paul said Christian love was the greatest and most essential of all the spiritual gifts. Throughout the New Testament, we are encouraged and commanded to live in peace with all God's people ( Romans 12:17-18) and commit ourselves to genuine love and caring for others ( 1 John 3:17-18). Those are the ways we can put our faith into practice in everyday life.
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