What is love?
Dictionary.com has definitions for love as a noun and a verb (used with/without an object).
Some people describe love as a warm fuzzy feeling. Some people say “I love you” to get what they want. Some people only love when they are getting what they want. What if we really learned what it means to love? This is what the Holy Bible says about love.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5) or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6) it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7) Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8) Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
God’s Love for You
Now that we have talked about what love is and should look like, let’s look at the one who loved us first, showed us true love, and continues to show us true love each and every day.
God loved us first.
We love because he first loved us.
1 John 4:19
Not only did he love us first, he showed us the perfect example of love.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:16
This shows that God has an amazing, true, everlasting, steadfast love for us. How many of us would be willing to give up our ONLY child to save a world? Not only did give his only son, this son came into this world humble, born in a manager. This child grew up into a man who experienced pain and persecution, so that he can fulfill his purpose and save US, now that is REAL LOVE!
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10)In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
1 John 4:9-10 (ESV)
Some of us have been hurt due to lack of love, which may have caused us to look for love in the wrong places or fear that we are not lovable. No matter who has not loved you in the past. No matter who has told you that you are not loved. No matter if you feel that you are not loved. The truth remains that God is love and God loves you.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8) Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:7-8
God shows us his love by continuing to provide us with mercy and grace daily, not matter what we do. You see, God understands who we are as beings and he still loves each and every one of us, just as we are. No matter what we do, how we act, how we respond, he still LOVES us. He is always waiting to share his love with us. The hardest part for most of us is accepting God’s love. We may feel like we are not good enough because of the mistakes that we make. We may feel that we are flawed, so how can God love us. God loves us, because he made us. Each of us are handcrafted by God. No matter our mistakes or flaws, God loves us.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5) even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.
Ephesians 2:4-5
But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38) For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39) nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:37-39
The Lord appeared to him from far away.I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
Jeremiah 31:3
Beloved, know that YOU are LOVED by God. If you don’t understand God’s love or continue to feel that you are not loved, take the time to read through the scriptures. Read it, write it, and recite if you have to. Read it over and over again until it your believe it because the truth is GOD LOVES YOU. There is no love greater, than the love of Christ.
More scriptures describing God’s love for you:
But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 86:15
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
1 John 3:1
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him.
Psalm 103:11
And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Ephesians 3:19
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
1 John 4:16
May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ.
2 Thessalonians 3:5
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us”. Saint Augustine
No matter who has told you different, trust and believe in God's love for you.
HIS LOVE and MINE,
Shemeca