The gift of God's love: For God so loved the world... (John 3:16)
It's nice to know He created us in His own image. He loves us so much that He sacrificed His one and only Son. He gave that love to us. Do you show others that kind of love?
His Commands: "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Matthew 22:36-40)
We are commanded to love. The most wonderful experience that our lives could experience is a command? God is good! Do you love the Lord? Do you love your neighbor? ...not just the nice ones, but the enemies and the outcasts? I'm not asking can you love? ...but do you? ...or will you?
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
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. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13)
I'll let the words of John bring this point to an end.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:8)
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:20)
Love the unloved, those that are mean, the "losers". It won't be easy at first and you may feel rejection. Don't ask why...just love!
"All you need is love." John Lennon
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