The Bible and Love

Love has been describes as the “fairest flower that blooms in God’s garden.”

The Pharisees had heard how that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees regarding the resurrection. The Pharisees upon receiving the report came together and one of them asked Jesus a question tempting him, “Master, which is the great command in the law?” The Lord’s response pinpointed the root cause for man’s lack of submission to God and respect for his fellow man. He said “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with al thy heart and with al thy soul, and with al thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40).

Love is like age, it cannot be hid. It is one thing to talk love, it something altogether different to demonstrate it.

Let us briefly consider some aspects of biblical love as it relates to one another.

1. It is a command of God (John 13:34, 35).

2. It is to be the kind of love that Christ has for us (John 15:12).

3. It is to be without dissimulation (hypocrisy or pretense) (Romans 12:9; 1 Peter 1:22).

4. It is a debt we owe that will never be paid in full (Romans 13:8).

5. It is to be extended to others as we love ourselves (Romans 13:9).

6. It works no ill (evil or bad) (Romans 13:10).

7. It is our motivation in our service to one another (Galatians 5:13).

8. It is the basis of our forbearing (bearing with) one another (Ephesians 4:2).

9. It must be the attitude and basis out of which we speak the truth (Ephesians 4:15).

10. We must have the same love one for another (Philippians 2:2).

11. Love is the basis of being knit (united) together (Colossians 2:2).

12. We are to abound in love one toward another (1 Thessalonians 3:12).

13. We are to provoke (excite) one another to love (Hebrews 10:24).

14. It is to continue (Hebrews 13:1).

15. It is to be with a pure heart (1 Peter 1:22).

16. It calls for our giving our own lives for one another (1 John 3:16).

17. It supplies the needs of the needed brother (1 John 4:12, 16).

18. It is necessary for God to dwell in us (1 John 4:12, 16).

19. He who claims he loves God but hates or doesn’t like his brethren is a liar (1 John 3:14).

20. A failure to love one another will result in the loss of the soul (1 John 3:14).

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful scene if all the members at East Huntsville and elsewhere possessed this type of love? When we speak of love look in the mirror first and notice the impatience, false accusations, unkind words, mistreatment, intolerance, self-centeredness, jealousy, unforgiveness, etc. True love is found in giving, not receiving.

Bill Cantrell