1 John 4:7-8
God is LOVE
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
God is LOVE...So we would expect many verses of Scripture to be about love to teach us more about love and all that it means...Love is unselfish...Love is for and directed to the one you love...Therefore, love is kind and unselfish as Jesus teaches us...Love is contained in the Fruit of the Holy Spirit...For the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control...
When Jesus gave us the Two Greatest Commandments, they are Commandments about love...Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength...The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’...There is no commandment greater than these...
And there are many other verses throughout the Bible that speak of love...
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; He is the faithful God, keeping His covenant of LOVE to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments...God shows His LOVE for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us...I have found the one whom my soul loves...Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends...By this we know love, that Jesus laid down His life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers...In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He LOVES us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins...Jesus' command is this: Love each other as I have LOVED you...Do unto others as you would have them do to you...Do everything in love...A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity...But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you...Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude...Love never ends...With all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love...Everything should be done in love...And may the LORD make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you...And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the day approaching...Hatred stirs up conflict, but love covers over all wrongs...Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins...There is no fear in love, but Perfect LOVE casts out fear...For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love...GOD LOVES righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD... Let love and faithfulness never leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart...Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man...Be devoted to one another in love...Honor one another above yourselves...Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law...Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you...Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You...Show me the way I should go, for to You I entrust my life...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 do not have love, I am nothing...
It is fitting to have St. Paul's writing on love right here...If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing...If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing...Love is patient, love is kind...It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud...It does not dishonor others, 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 completeness comes, what is in part 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 the ways of childhood behind me...For now we see only a 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...
And to end this loving verses we must say: Because of God's Great LOVE for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by Grace you have been saved...For God so LOVES the world, that He gave His Only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have Eternal Life...For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him...