God continually teaches me about loving others. I've been reflecting on love and what it really is alot this week. Looking at 1 Corinthians 13, John 3:16, Hebrews 9 & 10, and 1 John has helped me understand God better. (God IS love).
1 John 3:16, 17 "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth."
John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he GAVE his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."
1 John 2:4,5 "Whoever says, "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him., but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected."
1 Corinthians 13 "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gone 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 have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on it's own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong-doing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
These verses talk about what loving others should look like because they describe the way God acts toward us. (By sacrificing His Son, Jesus the Christ.) But they also explain that even if we give away everything and sacrifice everything without the purpose of love, it is nothing. God gives love and is ever-enduring to us when we don't love Him. If he were to just forgive us and give us things without love....well, that just isn't the way God is. You can't separate "God" and "love" and all good things. This has been interesting for me to look into because I see great need for growth in really loving others in my life. 1 John talks about love being perfected in us. The more I fall in love with who God is, the more I think love is displayed in my life. There are definitely things that come to mind when I hear the word love, but there are many ways I am seeing love displayed in my life that are new to me... Just like God's mercies being new every morning. We all learn new things every day through God's grace and mercy!
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