What Is Love God Is Love
Humanity has always struggled to define love, and is constantly redefining it, but Gods definition is clear and will never change:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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 .
God is love .
Kristi Walker has been a missionary in Berlin, Germany for over 15 years working with an international church as the Director of Student Ministries. She is the author of two books, Disappointment: A Subtle Path Away from Christ and Convinced. Applying Biblical Principles to Lifes Choices.
Love Is Easy To Discernby Looking At What It Isnt
Love is patient and kind love does not envy or boast it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way it is not irritable or resentful it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love is so simple, but at the same time, so difficult. As I read through these characteristics of love, I think about all the times Ive been arrogant, rude, selfish and resentful. Its a reminder of how, in our fallen nature, weve messed up a beautiful thing. Weve taken love from its purest form and made it into our own image. Its always easier for us to be self-serving, looking out for our own interests. It takes deliberate action to put others first. We dont have to try to be selfish, but it takes most of us significant effort to be selfless. True love is selfless.
Love Is A Sign Of Maturity
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
I think about immaturity a lot as a parent. I think my kids are old enough to act a certain way, but sometimes, they remind me of their immaturity. Sometimes, Im reminded of my own immaturity in how I respond to them. I used to think of this part of 1 Corinthians 13 as out of place in a passage about love. Why are these verses about maturity thrown into a chapter about love? Easy if love doesnt come natural, or if love is hard for us, we are immature.
No one wants to be called immature, but think about it. As kids, we focus entirely on our own needs. As adults, we are required to shift our focus. We become parents ourselves or we have to take care of our own parents. We have responsibilities to care for others, in addition to ourselves. Its a part of growing up. Paul reminds us that love for others shows our maturity.
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How God Loves Us
Everybody knows the Scripture John 3:16: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. But have you ever really looked at the first four words? For God SO LOVED. In the Amplified version, it says, For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world. We are not talking about a little bit of love we are talking about true love that is unconquerable.
In Romans 8:35,37,39, the Apostle Paul says, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So no matter what happens in this world, Gods love is stronger and will carry you through any situation you face. There is nothing or nobody who can take Gods love away from you.
The Commandments Are Love
This is love this is what the bible says about love. If I have no other gods besides Jesus, I do not make a graven image depicting Him, I do not take His name in vain, and I remember and keep His Holy Sabbath day I am literally showing that I love Him.
Likewise, if I respect and honor my parents, I show love for them. If I avoid stealing from my brothers and sisters, killing, being a false witness against my neighbors and coveting their belongings, I again am expressing love because I am doing well by them.
If my friend has a gorgeous wife, sure we can appreciate the beauty, but we should not lust after her and make a move on her even if she makes the advance. We know that adultery is against God and against your friend.
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We Are Worthless Without Love
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not 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 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.
No list of Bible love passages is complete without reference to 1 Corinthians 13. In fact, this is the first of several references to the love chapter. Thats because it is chock full of truth that should influence how we feel about love. None are more poignant than the beginning of the chapter. Its easy for us to puff ourselves up with our talents and abilities. We can start to think we are pretty great successful career, college degree, beautiful family, even growing in our faith. But, as Paul reminds us, its all worthless if we dont have love.
God Chose To Adopt You Because He Loves You
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.
You can have a child by accident, but you cannot adopt a child by accident. When you adopt a child, you choose to love, cherish and care for that child for life. When God adopts you, its not an accident. He chooses to love, cherish and care for you forever. He does it because He loves you and wants an eternal relationship with you.
God loves His children as a proud Father. If you have begun a relationship with Him, you are Gods child and He delights in you.
Take a minute to think about how the God of the entire universe loves you personally and chose you to be His child.
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Love Of A Father And Mother
The people who love a person unconditionally are his parents. The love of God is compared to that of a father. A father carries his son and cares for him and his future .
A mother cares and nurtures her children even though she has to face lots of trouble bringing up her children .
A loving father corrects his son when he does not obey his words. Similarly, our God corrects us when we go astray from His path . This may seem tough and hard. But it brings great fruits in the future.
Even a father and a mother may forget their children. But each of us is special in the eyes of God and He holds our future in His hands. Thus the love of God never fails us and has no limit .
Bible Verses About Love And Care For The Poor
The Bible is overflowing with verses about caring for the poor – its a cause so close to Gods heart. Gods heart for justice is the motivation for everything we do at Compassion. These Bible verses are a reminder to care for the poor, to defend the cause of the vulnerable and to speak up for those who are denied a voice. Poverty can seem overwhelming, the injustice of it too vast. But sponsoring a child is a great way to start and bring Gods justice to one child in poverty.
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Gods Love In The Psalms
Psalm 11:7 For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness His countenance beholds the upright.
Psalm 25:10 All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies.
Psalm 36:7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
Psalm 51:1 Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Psalm 91:14 Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him I will set him on high because he has known My name.
On Puddles And Oceans
Love is love the world and the president of the United States have that much correct. But the Bible tells us its also so much more.
First, the Bible tells us of loves originthat its actually riveted outside ourselves, to the very character and nature of the triune God. Second, the Bible shows us the love of God in the sacrifice of Christ: a love that is both gracious because it is contra-conditional and authoritative because it changes us, bestowing on us the very things it requires through the Holy Spirit. Third, the Bibles definition of love changes the way we love othersboth believers and non-believers.
As Christians, we understand were standing on miles of identical ground in fact, it is our equal status in Christ that enables us to love each other by both recounting the gospel to one another and, if necessary, correcting each other when mired in sin. Similarly, the Bible also exhorts us to love non-Christians with a heavenward love, not by conceding truth in order to win favor, but by adorning the gospel through our daily submission to the lordship of Christ.
The Bible says a lot about love, but most of all, it raises our expectations and subverts our paradigms. It points to an ocean while the worlds busy playing in a puddle.
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Bible Verses About Gods Unconditional Love
There is nothing that we can do to earn Gods love. He simply loves us as a Great Father loves His children.
Rest in the fact that He loves you and has loved you before the foundation of the world! Dont worry, no matter who you are or what youve done, God loves you!
Romans 5:7-8 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 8:38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Grace enables us to become the people we were meant to be. Many of us are tired of trying to live up to other peoples expectations. It is a relief to discover that God loves us just as we are. Rob Rufus
Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
I John 4:9-10 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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
What Does The Bible Say About Love Godly Love
If someone says, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother. 1 John 4:20-21.
Our love for God is not greater than our love for our fellow men. Godly love does not change according to circumstances. It is rooted and grounded.
The tendency is to want the others to change. We feel that it is difficult to love someone as they are and would prefer that they were different. But this is not what the Bible says about love! This is proof that we are more concerned with our own happiness and comfort than with love for the others we are seeking our own.
But what is love? The truth is that instead of hoping for the others to change, we need to find the sin in ourselves and cleanse that out. The self-interest, know-it-all attitude, conceit, stubbornness, etc., the sin that I find when I deal with others in the course of life. If we cleanse ourselves from these things then we can bear, believe, hope, and endure all things from the others. We love them as they are, and we can pray for them out of a sincere Godly love and concern for them.
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Bible Verses About Love And Marriage
Here are a few Bible verses on marriage for your consideration.
Proverbs 31:10-12 A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life.
I Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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.
Before anybody can even come to understand or even show love to another person in a relationship is to know that God is love, which is the ultimate key to unlocks all other love. John Franks
Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.
Song of Solomon 8:6-7 Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm for love is as strong as death, its jealousyunyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of ones house for love, it would be utterly scorned.
Romans 12:10 Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
Bible Verses About Gods Steadfast Love
I Kings 8:23 And said, Lord, the God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth belowyou who keep your covenant of love with your servants who continue wholeheartedly in your way.
Psalm 103:11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Zephaniah 3:17 The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you in his love, he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.
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What The Scriptures Say About Love
What is Love?
In the New International Version of the Bible, the word love occurs 686 times 261 times in the New Testament and 425 times in the Old Testament. Another word to take into consideration is Peace. You might ask why so? It is worth nothing that the Old Testament was originally pinned in Hebrew while the New Testament in Greek. In those languages, there exist multiple words for love probably depending on the kind of love that the author was referring to. This leads us into saying that there are many kinds of loves as revealed by the Bible. For simplification purposes, we can breakdown the different types of loves into 4 kinds.
The 4 Types of Love
1. storg
storg is the kind of love in the Bible that many people are not familiar with. This Greek word clearly points to what we can refer to as Family Love. It is the affectionate bond that naturally develops between parents and children, brothers and sisters. There are lots of Biblical examples pointing to this kind of love. To list a few, well point to the mutual protection between Noah and his wife, the strong love that Martha and her sister Mary had for their brother Lazarus whom Jesus Christ resurrected from dead, and the love that Jacob had for his sons. It is in this very light that we are commanded in Romans 12:10 to be devoted to one another with brotherly affection. The word devoted is a compound word using storge, philostorgos,
2. eros
3. Philos
4. Agape