{"id":8281,"date":"2010-06-12T00:03:08","date_gmt":"2010-06-12T00:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"\/Jerri's-Blog\/God's-Love.aspx"},"modified":"2014-04-20T02:34:53","modified_gmt":"2014-04-20T02:34:53","slug":"gods-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hisriches.com\/gods-love\/","title":{"rendered":"God’s Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

“…God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him…We love because he first loved us…”  1 John 4:16-19<\/strong><\/p>\n

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The Bible says “…God is love…”<\/strong><\/em>  When discussing God’s love, we are talking about God—the complete summation of His character and actions. This certainly isn’t what the world (those who don’t know Jesus) considers love, even though they might include some of the characteristics of God’s love in their definition. Probably, if a man really understood “…the love God has for us…” 1 John 4:16<\/strong> he would accept His love.<\/p>\n

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Unless we love God, we can’t really understand love:
\n“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." Matthew 22:37-40 <\/strong>Only if we love God can we truly love others.<\/p>\n

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The Lord wants us to treat others as we want to be treated:
\n“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:12 Luke 6:31
\n“The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself."” Galatians 4:14<\/strong> Because we have received so many blessings from the Lord, we should be willing to bestow blessing on others.<\/p>\n

Loving someone would be treating them as they want to be treated, not necessarily the way we want to be treated. For instance, you love peanut butter sandwiches. Treating someone as you want to be treated doesn’t necessarily mean giving them a peanut butter sandwich. Instead, it would be finding out what sandwich they like and giving it to them.
\nSome people might want something, but it wouldn’t be good for them. For instance, an alcoholic might want money to buy liquor, but giving it to them would be harming them and wasting the money that could have gone to glorify God. These examples might be common sense, but they are to demonstrate that loving others requires God’s wisdom and guidance.
\nWe have to discipline our children in love, and THAT requires a great deal of wisdom and guidance:
\n“He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him.” Proverbs 13:24<\/strong> (See also Proverbs 19:18 22:15 23:13 29:17<\/strong>)
\nWe discipline because we love as the Lord disciples those He loves:
\n“My son, do not despise the LORD’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, because the LORD disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” Proverbs 3:11-12<\/strong> (See also Deuternomy 4:36 11:2 Job 5:17 Psalm 94:12 Hebrews 12:5f Revelation 3:19<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Jesus said we are supposed to go beyond loving our neighbors as ourselves. We are to love others as He loved us:
\n"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:34-35<\/strong> If we love each other this way, the world will see and wonder. Some might want to be part of the family of God.
\nThe Apostle Paul also tells us to treat others better than ourselves:
\n“…in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Philippians 2:3<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Why is to love an old command, yet a new command? We were always supposed to trustfully obey God. But now Jesus has given an example of that love. Love is no longer something outside us. Jesus has been made real to us and is in us. He came to this world to live for us, die to pay the penalty for our sin and rise again to the right hand of the Father to pray for us and care for us. He sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in us and guide us in His ways:
\n“Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” 1 John 2:7-8 <\/strong>The darkness in this world and in our old nature (which sometimes still shows itself) is passing away and we sit with Jesus in heavenly places:
\n“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Ephesians 2:6-7<\/strong><\/p>\n

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How did Jesus love us:
\n“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” 1 John 4:9 <\/strong>God’s love is the love He gave when He sent His Son to suffer and die for our sins: 
\n"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
\n<\/strong>Jesus willingly died to pay the penalty for our sins even when we were unworthy and unlovable: 
\n“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
\n<\/strong>When talking about His life on earth, Jesus said:
\n“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father." John 10:19
\n<\/strong>If we loved unconditionally as Jesus loved us, there would be no murder or hate or coveting or stealing or even divorce.<\/p>\n

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Jesus told us to “Love each other as I have loved you”<\/strong><\/em>. He laid “down his life for his friends”<\/strong><\/em>:
\n“…My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:12-14<\/strong> We are His friends if we do what He commands. We will obey Him if we have chosen to believe in Him and make Him our Lord and Master. Then we will know and understand Him.<\/p>\n

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If we choose to believe (obey and serve) in Him, we will understand the Bible, His Word, because He is His Word:
\n“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
\nThrough him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it… The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:1-14<\/strong><\/p>\n

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We will also hear His voice concerning specific instructions:
\n“…He (Jesus) calls his own sheep (those who believe in Him) by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.” John 10:3-4<\/strong><\/p>\n

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It may seem impossible to love each other as Christ loved the Church (believers) and the world (those who do not believe), and it is, without supernatural strength. But we receive supernatural strength by remaining in the love of the Son as He remains in the love of the Father:
\n"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” John 15:9
\n<\/strong>The Father has loved Jesus for eternity:
\nAnd now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” John 17:5
\n<\/strong>We remain in His love by obeying His commands:
\n“If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” John 15:10
\n<\/strong>And our reward will be that we will be His friends and our “joy may be complete”<\/strong><\/em>:
\n “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” John 15:11<\/strong> By loving the way He wants  us to we will naturally have joy. As “…the Lord Jesus himself said: `It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ " Acts 20:35<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Jesus knew who would choose Him before time began:
\n“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit–fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other.” John 15:16-17<\/strong>One of the fruit of the Spirit is love (“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control…” Galatians 5:22-23<\/strong>). Love sums up all the fruit of the Spirit (…<\/strong>God is love…<\/strong><\/em>).<\/p>\n

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God teaches us how to love. As we become more and more like Him, we love “…more and more”<\/strong><\/em>. The Apostle Paul wrote:
\n“Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. And in fact, you do love all the brothers throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers, to do so more and more.” 1 Thessalonians 4:9-10<\/strong><\/p>\n

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How do we show love to God and to others? If this is what we are supposed to do, how do we do it? Following are suggestions:<\/p>\n

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First, since “…God is love…”<\/strong><\/em>, a person cannot love  unless God’s Holy Spirit lives inside him:
\n“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:7-8<\/strong> What the world or society calls love is not what God calls love. They base love on feelings, attitudes and teachings; they don’t know God so cannot know real love. Only by accepting God’s love can man know love.<\/p>\n

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Man has the capacity to love; God made man in His image and planned for mankind to love:
\n“Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
\nSo God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:26-27
\n"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made man.” Genesis 9:6<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Whoever believes in Jesus lives in love because God is love:
\n“…God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”<\/strong><\/em> He is growing in love. The Apostle Paul said about the Philippians:
\n“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Second, the characteristics of love are defined throughout the Bible, perhaps most clearly in 1 Corinthians 13<\/strong>:
\n“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres…Love never fails….And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-13 <\/strong>We can judge whether or not we are acting in love.<\/p>\n

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Third, obeying God is showing love. Doing what He asks us to do even if we do not understand, shows love:
\n“And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.” 1 John 1:5-6
\n“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Fourth, for motivation to sacrifice for others, we can remember that when we love others we show love for God:
\n“And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” 1 John 4:7-21<\/strong> John says over and over in  1 John<\/strong> that we must love our brother (fellow Christian).<\/p>\n

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Fifth, we can in part judge if we have love when we do not fear:
\n“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18 <\/strong>When we are obeying God we have fellowship with Him; we do not need to fear. He is completely in control.<\/p>\n

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Sixth, life teaches us to love. We are being made to be like Jesus:
\n“For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Romans 8:29
\n<\/strong>Jesus is God:
\n“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.” Philippians 2:5-7
\n“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” Hebrews 1:3
\n<\/strong>And “…God is love…”<\/strong><\/em>
\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“…God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him…We love because he first loved us…”  1 John 4:16-19   The Bible says<\/p>\n

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