‘Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. ‘ Ephesians 1:4-6(NLT)
‘And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”’ Mark 12:30-31(NLT)
‘So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers does not belong to God.
Love One Another
This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ‘ 1 John 3:10-11(NLT)
‘We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion—how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions. Our actions will show that we belong to the truth, so we will be confident when we stand before God. Even if we feel guilty, God is greater than our feelings, and he knows everything.’ 1 John 3:16-20(NLT)
‘Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.’ 1 John 4:7-12(NLT)
‘That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.’ 2 Corinthians 12:10(NLT)
The entire message of God’s written word is based only on one thought, one idea, one Person: Love.
Love is the reason—the compelling force of our existence, the answer to why we were born. God, who is love, created us from love, for love, to love. It is His greatest command for us—to love Him and others and to experience joyful relationships from that love.
When our loving God offered His only Son as a sacrifice and covering for our sins, it was the greatest expression of His love for you and me. Most of us have experienced this transformational vertical love from God, yet we may have a very difficult time and often miserably fail with our horizontal relationships—our spouses and kids, our parents, our friends, and our co-workers. In our failure to give love to others we’ve lost marriages, friends, jobs, or maybe just our temper.
The problem is that our love burns out. It wears thin and dries up from feelings that have faded and changed or from painful experiences that have shut us down.
For love to last and not fail, we must have a source of perfect love from which to draw, one that is greater than the depth of our own abilities, feelings, and emotions. If God is love, will He ever run out of love? Is there a limit to His great love?
The answer is no. And as long as we are connected to that endless Source and because of the magnitude of His love for us, there should never be a time we aren’t able to offer and demonstrate love to others.
Yet, we all fail. Thankfully, when we turn to Him He overwhelms all our failures with His generous grace and mercy, offering us new beginnings. We can move forward from our failures by holding to the truth that God calls us His own. Our weakness is His greatest strength.
As we practice loving others, we may take one step forward and two steps back. But as we continue to make room for Him and remain in His never-failing, eternal, Niagara Falls of love, our response toward others will be to always love, always serve, always give. Our ability to love will never be exhausted because love isn’t just a feeling or an emotion. Love is a Person. He is for us, He is with us, and He empowers us from His great love to love others, far beyond what we think is possible.
Continue with me in the next few days as we read more about practicing the high calling of loving others from His great love.
“Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us.” 1 John 4:19 TPT
Consider reading today’s scriptures from The Passion Translation (TPT)
from Love Is a Person by Robin Meadows