Often the love we experience in the world today is based on our performance or another’s personal preference. This kind of love can change easily and does not fulfill. The love with which God loves you is not this way. The Bible tells us that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). This means that even when you had your back turned toward God, He loved you so much that He sent His only Son to earth to die in your place, that you might receive eternal life.
The love that God has shown us is the kind of love we as Christians are to show everyone we know—the kind of love that treats another person as we ourselves would like to be treated, the kind of love that would die for another person, even for our enemies. When someone treats you badly and you treat them well in return, you have loved them the way God loves. You cannot love this way out of your own strength; you will only end up frustrated. Instead, you can love others by faith. When you understand that God loved you completely when you were a sinner, and that you have been saved by this love because of your faith in Jesus Christ, you can love others by this same faith through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can ask God in faith to fill you with His love for others and He will be faithful to do it, for it is His desire that you love others as He has loved you.
Key verses
“In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”
1 John 4:10,11
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, 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.”
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
“And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.”
1 John 4:21
