Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 1 John 4:7-8
My commandment is this: love one another, just as I love you. The greatest love a person can have for his friends is to give his life for them. And you are my friends if you do what I command you. John 15:12-14
This, then, is what I command you: love one another. John 15:17
And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples. John 13:34-35
Be under obligation to no one -- the only obligation you have is to love one another. Whoever does this has obeyed the Law. Romans 13:8
Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. And God showed his love for us by sending his only Son into the world, so that we might have life through him. This is what love is: it is not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the means by which our sins are forgiven.
Dear friends, if this is how God loved us, then we should love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in union with us, and his love is made perfect in us.
We are sure that we live in union with God and that he lives in union with us, because he has given us his Spirit. And we have seen and tell others that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone declares that Jesus is the Son of God, he lives in union with God and God lives in union with him. and we ourselves know and believe that love which God has for us.
God is love, and whoever lives in love lives in union with God and god lives in union with him. Love is made perfect in us in order that we may have courage on the Judgment Day; and we will have it because our life in this world is the same as Christ's. There is no fear in love; perfect love drives out all fear. So then, love has not been made perfect in anyone who is afraid, because fear has to do with punishment.
We love because God first loved us. If someone says he loves God, but hates his brother, he is a liar. For he cannot love God, whom he has not seen, if he does not love his brother, whom he has seen. The command that Christ has given us is this: whoever loves God must love his brother also. 1 John 4:7-21
I think this statement can be taken literally: God is love; love is God. The love referred to here, is a very special kind of love. It is selfless love. Charitable love. Love given without expecting anything in return. It is practical love, love that does things for people to meet their needs. It is the kind of love exhibited by Mother Theresa. It is the kind of love exhibited by someone who would send their son to die in someone elses place.
The God that Christians believe in is not some super powerful extraterrestrial creature patterned after the greek gods that regulate the lives of mortal men.
Christians worship Love.
The atheist is the person who doesn't believe in love; the person who doesn't believe that people are capable of selfless acts. The atheist is the person who believes that all altruistic behavior, no matter how noble it may appear, is ultimately predicated on personnal advantage. No person who has ever been in love can truely be an atheist.
In the third century A.D. Origen (as cited in Moody, D. (1970) "Romans" Broadman Bible Commentary Nashville, Broadman Press) wrote, "The debt of love remains with us permanently and never leaves us; this is a debt which we both discharge every day, and forever owe."
Last Updated: Sunday, April 07, 1996
Copyright © 1996 Steve Falkenberg