What's Love got to do with it?

[TheCHammer]

Webster's defines love as "a strong attraction brought about by affection or desire".

I love my wife and kids. I have a great desire to be near them, and be affectionate towards them. I love my church,and I enjoy serving them. I can wrap my mind around these. How about this, "I love my TV", or "I love my new shirt". Do you list material items as your loved ones? When you take a family photo, do you make sure you get your phone dressed up for the picture? Not likely, because we don't truly love these items. They are just that, they are items. They can't love you back.
Love is a two way street. If all we do is take, we don't experience the true meaning. If we don't know how to show love, then we don't know what love looks like coming to us. If we don't know what love looks like coming to us, then we don't know how to show it to others.
Fortunately, there is a simpler definition for love. GOD IS LOVE. Romans 8:38-39 tells us that "nothing" can separate us from God's love. That means that God will do whatever it takes to express his love to us, even giving the life of His son (John 3:16). Jesus expressed this as well. He loved all people, murderers, thieves, and even prostitutes. He did this because we all deserve to be loved.
Let's get traffic moving in the right direction. Let's step away from our one-way actions. Let's be as much a giver, as we are a taker. Let's be faithful in our love affair with God, and allow Him to be faithful, as always, with His unfailing love for us.

Three things will last forever-faith, hope, and love-and the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor 13:13

 

[Look Up]

When the Bible talks of God's love for sinners and the Pharisees's love for the praises of men, it is using the same word--agape, in noun form. We can love our cell phones. And God can and did love us "while we were yet sinners" (Rom. 5:8) and enemies of God even as He tells His followers to love their enemies. Love can be and often is a one way street. And love can be good or bad, depending on contextual clues.

Of course the kind of love the Bible encourages and the kind that God offers is good. When God commands us to love Him, He is expecting the greatest devotion and commitment we can offer. And when we are commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves, His expectation of us is the same.

Of course God did the same for us, and more so. When He "so loved the world" (John 3:16), the object of His love was unworthy of it (since loving darkness rather than light), hence the glory of God's love. God's deep affection for His sheep is not deserved, but it is deeply affectionate nonetheless. And that is our model. God's love was so great that He gave His only Son, and the love He demands of us is in expectation that we give of ourselves.

"And who is my neighbor? ... "

 

[TheCHammer]

I appreciate the insight. considering myself still daily new to faith, I love any feedback I can get. I love learning from his word, as well as other people's views.
A for who is our neighbor, everyone is.
"Whatever you do for the least of these, you are doing for me"

 

[armadillopete]

Love is used in many ways.

You can love a cell phone or love a favourite TV show or a particular food.In these ways love has a pedestrian meaning. There is no return of love.

You can love your parents, spouse, children or any other family member. This type of love is usually returned in kind and should be unconditional but as we all know it doesn't always happen that way.

Love of God is on another level. God loves you without fail. It is a spiritual love. A deeply personal love that has no equal.

Deuteronomy 6:5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.


1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anybody loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.