1 John 4:7-21
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. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 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. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Matthew 22:34-40
The Greatest Commandment
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
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."
St. John said God is LOVE, and that we have learned about love, because He LOVED us from the beginning...Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God...Jesus said to love the LORD Our God with all of our heart and with all of our soul and with all of our mind...This is the first and greatest commandment...And the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself...All the Books of the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments...So we are to love God and to love our neighbors...
LOVE is passionate...LOVE is full of grace and truth...LOVE is full of mercy...LOVE is full of forgiveness...LOVE is a positive emotion and relates to the goodness in others...LOVE unites people and brings them together...So there is this fellowship in LOVE...LOVE looks for the good and positive in others and not the negative in people and things...
So when Jesus teaches us to love God and love neighbor, He is telling us to be passionate, merciful, forgiving, graceful, truth to others, and to look for the goodness in them...