Matthew 22:36-40
The Greatest Commandments Are About Love
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Matthew 5:43-48
Love for Enemies
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 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. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
1 John 4:16
God is Love
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
1 Corinthians 13:8-13
Love Never Fails
8 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. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 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. 12 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.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Love God and love neighbor...A loving relationship with God and our neighbors is very important in Jesus' teachings...Jesus sums up all the Books of the Law in the Bible, as well as the Books of the Prophets in Two Commandments, with love God, love neighbor...When Jesus teaches us the Two Greatest Commandments we see they are about love...He says these Two Greatest Commandments hang on these two commandments of love...Love never fails...Love is the greatest virtue there is...Of faith, hope, and love -love is the greatest of these...Love never fails, because it is eternal...
Love and love relationships are taught throughout the Bible...Scripture and God's Word tells us how important love relationships are with God and our neighbors...And in the Greatest Commandment Jesus links God, love, and neighbor forever together...
Jesus in teaching these Two Great Commandments, He is teaching us to have loving relationships with everyone...Not just some people but with everyone...He wants us to have a relationship with God, and also with our neighbors...All of our neighbors...He wants us to have a loving relationship with our enemies also...
Love is the path that Jesus wants us to take while we live...And this love path, this loving path is also an eternal path, because God is LOVE...Love is eternal, because God is eternal...