Posts Tagged ‘ Love ’
If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.
1 John 4:20, ESV
You must love others. If you belittle, shun, mock, abuse, ignore, mistreat, and/or generally act unkindly toward others…
… and you call yourself a Christian …
… you have made yourself a liar. The love of God is not in you.
Repent, and love.
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13, ESV
Do not think that because you sin or life gets hard (and even impossible) that God has abandoned you.
Instead, look for how God is moving in your life, to discipline you – allowing the effects of sin to play out or to help you grow stronger in faith.
He is always with you, Christian.
Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Romans 13:10, ESV
The love of Christ in us is not merely sacrificial, it is selfless, considerate, patient, and truthful.
Yes, it can be difficult living all of this out. But, in many ways, it gets easier to understand and do as you love them.
But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Matthew 6:3-4, ESV
We are to do good things for others, but it is out of love for God and others. If we do good things to look good in front of others, then we are loving ourselves only.
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.
1 Corinthians 13:2, ESV
It is not enough to seek spiritual gifts of any type if love for God and others (both, at the same time) is not driving the desire.
Seek God’s love and righteousness, and you will be amazed what God does through you.
For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
Psalm 100:5, ESV
God did not need us.
But He created us, even knowing how we would treat Him.
But He told us in the Garden of Eden that He had a plan to save us, and one day He will make all things new.
Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.
Psalm 63:3-4, ESV
True life is found in the love of God.
Give God the Father thanks and praise for sharing His love through the vicarious death of His Son and by the power of the Holy Spirit.
I know (for most of you, at least) that you read ” the opposite of love” and think “is hate.”
I disagree. (And if you already know what I think about this, please hold your comments until the end. Thanks.)
Hatred comes from one of two places.
The first is loving something/someone so much that you want to protect that love. Anything that interferes with or threatens that bond or the well-being of the object of love is rightfully hated.
“do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath, for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.”
Zechariah 8:17, ESV
As a reminder, this does not mean we hate people. People are acting out from the real problem: sin, the evil within.
We hate the sin. (We can have another conversation at another time about the saying “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” Also, another another conversation can be had about jealousy.)
What is this?
I will ask a few questions to get us there:
Hopefully you see it now!
Fear leads to all kinds of craziness, such as avoiding others, making mistakes, hurting others, and even hatred.
This is not to say that fear always leads to hatred. Hatred can come from misplaced love (loving self or something more than is good) or ignorance (both innocent and willful ignorance). This is a mixture of the first source of hatred and fear.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.
1 John 4:18, ESV
Loving others frees us of hatred and the fear of what they may do to us.
Love also frees us of the fear of God’s punishment for our sin, but only when we see the truth that He loved us and showed it by coming as a man to sacrifice Himself for the forgiveness of our sin. This is also what empowers us to love others. (1 John 4:19)
It is also what reminds us that, while we are born into and perpetuate the sin of Adam and Eve, we are freed from that sin.
See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
1 John 3:1, ESV
Through Christ we are adopted into the family of God, for the Father sees His Son when He looks at believers. We know Him through the Holy Spirit who shows us the Son.
Beloved, I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul.
3 John 1:2, ESV
We should encourage each other and lift each other up.
Especially, we should encourage each other to strengthen our souls through reading Scripture, prayer, and communal worship.
a simple man of God 