What is love? We talk about things we love. At Church we sing about the love of God. Then we drive home listening to radio songs about self-centered, one-sided, and hopeless love. We are obsessed with love, yet we rarely see true love in the world. There is a hole in the human heart we are desperate to fill with love. We need reassurance and affection from others. Love is something our souls need.

According to the author, the word love appears in the NIV Bible translation 567 times. The Bible is the story of God’s unrelenting and unconditional love for humanity. God’s love makes every other part of our life beyond amazing.

Love is one of the great virtues of the Bible. It is not only God’s love but also our love for one another. God’s love is poured into our hearts and pours out of us towards others. God’s love is more than an emotional sensation. It is kind, long-suffering, pure, and perceptive. It is practical. It hugs the lonely, feds the hungry, cares for the sick, comforts the sorrowful, and tolerates the insufferable.

Before Jesus taught this type of love through his life, love was often self-serving. But Jesus was sent to the world as a love gift from God. The love of God is so different from any other love in the world that it is given a special name. It is called agape.

Agape is the divine love of God towards humanity. Agape is the highest form of love. It is sacrificial and redeeming love. The story of Beauty and the Beast describes a type of redeeming love. The Beast was a handsome young prince who was cursed by a fairy for refusing to give hospitality during a storm. Afterwards, the Beast lived in isolation, afraid of how people would react if they saw him. But when Belle came to live with him, she saw through his horrible exterior and loved the man underneath. Her love for the Beast broke the curse. Her love was a redeeming love.

This is the way God loves us. We are his creation made unlovely by sin. God sees through our sinful exterior and loves the person underneath.  Through God’s love we are made lovely again. God’s love for us is the key to us loving one another.

Many people think of love as a feeling. Something we cannot control. Something that just happens to us. But in the Bible, love is not a feeling. It is a command.

John 13:34 NIV

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

John 15:12 NIV

My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

In the New Testament we are commanded to love each other in many situations. To love one another as family and friends. We are commanded to love one another in 10 verses. Why are we commanded to love each other? Should it be easy and natural to love each other?  Does anyone really know if we do not love each other? Of course, God knows. But can the world tell if we love each other? The Bible says that the world will know us by our love.

John 13:35 NIV

By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

The world is watching to see if Jesus does make a difference in our lives. The world is looking for hypocrisy in us. Are we people who talk about love but do not acting in loving ways?

Because love is more than a feeling, it is something which can be seen. Love is an action. It is the process of doing something for others. Godly love is a selfless attitude and action to seek the best for others. Worldly love is a feeling, a desire to be satisfied, a desire to have our needs met. What would happen if the church became obsessed with Godly love rather than worldly love?

In Revelations, Jesus said to the church in Ephesus that they had lost their love for Jesus. The church was once on fire for Jesus and trying to help their city through godly love. But something happened and they lost their passion for God.

Revelation 2:4-5 NIV

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.

The solution was to repent and return to their first love. Return to prioritizing Jesus in their lives and they would regain the love and passion they experienced earlier.

The world tells us to trust our feelings, to follow our hearts. But agape love does not follow our feelings. Agape love leads through action and commitment. Godly love is a verb.

Is the gift of love from God received at salvation or is it developed in our lives over time? Yes, it is both received and developed.

Romans 5:5 NIV

And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

2 Timothy 1:7 NIV

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

1 Corinthians 13:13-14:1 NIV

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. Follow the way of love

In Galatians 5, love is described as a fruit of the Spirit. One of the mysteries of Christianity is that the fruits of the Spirit are gifts that must be developed. As fruit trees are pruned and watered to grow and produce more fruit, so are the fruits of the Spirit developed in our lives. Godly love is a gift and a task which when received and developed will lead to an amazing life.

When God pours his love into our hearts, we will have a reservoir of love to draw from when we need to love others. We love others with the love God has given us. We behave as though we love others and allow God to fill us with his love. This is not a pretense of loving, but it is a decision to behave towards others as God would behave and then allow God to act through us.

The Bible tells us we should love one another but there are many things the Bible does not tell us. We should not sanctify one another, humble one another, scrutinize one another, pressure one another, embarrass one another, corner one another, interrupt one another, defeat one another, sacrifice one another, shame one another, marginalize one another, exclude one another, judge one another, run one another’s lives, confess one another’s sins, and the list continues. Loving one another does not include doing unloving things to each other.

Christians in the first century struggled with these things as much as we do. That is why the Bible tells us how to love one another.

1 Peter 1:22 NIV

Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.

1 John 3:17-18 NIV

If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

1 Timothy 1:5 NIV

The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.

1 John 3:16 NIV

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.

1 John 4:11 NIV

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

Ephesians 5:1-2 NIV

Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

One way to increase our awareness of how to live a loving life is to read the letters Peter wrote to the first-century churches. He did not tell them to increase their activities, offerings, or attendance. He prayed for them to do something far more difficult.

 To the church in Philippi, he wrote:

Philippians 1:9 NIV

And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight,

To the church in Ephesus, he wrote:

Ephesians 3:16-19 NIV

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

To the Corinthians, he wrote:

1 Corinthians 11:1 NIV

Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

As Paul prayed for greater love so should we. It is God’s desire that we grow in love towards God and towards each other. Some people are harder to love than others. We do not have to like people in order to love them. We are commanded to love people. We are not commanded to be everyone’s best friend. We make a decision to love them and then we do loving things for them. Christian love is an action not an emotion.

We all know the emotions involved when we are cut off in traffic or insulted by a stranger. But rather than responding in kind we can choose to respond with Christian love. We can say a silent prayer. We can seek good for the other person.

It is hard to love a difficult person. But we are commanded to love even our enemies.

Matthew 5:43-45 NIV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Luke 6:27-28 NIV

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.

Jesus tells us to love our enemies then he tells us how to display that love towards them by praying for them and blessing them. Jesus is not telling us to expose ourselves to continued abuse. He is not telling us to forsake our values and beliefs. Rather he is telling us to pray that God’s will and love will enter into the lives of our enemies. We are praying for God’s best to come into their lives and to change them from the inside out.

There are examples of this in the Bible. Stephen prayed for the people who stoned him.

Acts 7:60 NIV

Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.

Paul gave his life to spread the gospel. He was persecuted, whipped, beaten, and jailed. Yet he responded with Godly love towards his attackers.

1 Corinthians 4:12-13 NIV

We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.

Romans 12:20-21 NIV

On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.

As we learned to walk, we can also learn to love. Becoming loving is not about committing one gigantic act of love and then being finished. It is about taking a thousand small steps one day at a time. So, let us begin each day learning how we can love one another as God first loved us.

1 John 4:7 NIV

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.