What is Love?
Dic. Definition: A strong positive emotion of regard and affection, it could also mean a passion for something or a person. it also means a deep feeling of sexual desires and attraction or sexual activities it is also used as a term of endearment i.e. beloved, dear, dearest, honey, love but the love I am on about is the agape love, which is the selfless love of one person for another without sexual implications. i.e. love that is spiritual in nature.
A Love for both God and man is fundamental to true religion, whether as expressed in the Old Testament or the New Testament. Jesus, Himself declared that all the law and the prophets hang upon love ( Matthew 22:40; Mark 12:28-34 ).
Paul, in his matchless teaching on love ( 1 Corinthians 13 ), makes it the greatest of the graces of the Christian life–greater than speaking with tongues, or the gift of prophecy, or the possession of faith of superior excellence; for without love all these gifts and graces, desirable and useful as they are in themselves, are as nothing, certainly of no permanent value in the sight of God.
Not that either Jesus or Paul underestimates the faith from which all the graces proceed, for this grace is recognized as fundamental in all God’s dealings with man and man’s dealings with God ( John 6:28; Hebrews 11:6 ); but both alike count that faith as but idle and worthless belief that does not manifest itself in love to both God and man. As love is the highest expression of God and His relation to mankind, so it must be the highest expression of man’s relation to his Maker and to his fellow man.
Scriptures Define quality of love:
1 Corinthians 13
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;
5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;
6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
#Text 1 John 4:
10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
#THE SOURCE OF LOVE
1 John 7: 21
#10 Ways to Love Your Neighbours:
#James.2:8-9
Do not show prejudice
You must not oppress your neighbours- #Leviticus 19:13
You must not commit robbery against your neighboursWithhold monies/wages due to your neighbour -#Matt.19:18
You should treat others as you will want them to treat you- #Matt.5:41-42
Love your enemiesBless them that curse youDo good to them that hate you Pray for them who despitefully use you #Rom.13:8-9
You should owe no man anything except to love one another-
#The Love Test (The Neighbourhood Test)
Who is your Neighbour?
– (Ref Donoghue v. Stevenson)(Law of Tort)
– Good Samaritan Luke 10:25-37 A beautiful spirit worthy of a Christian was that of a man who found his horse in the pound one day, and the farmer who put it in said, “I found your horse in my field, and I put it in the pound; and if I ever catch it there again, I ‘ll put it there again”. “Well”, replied the other ” I found six of your cows in my farmyard the other night eating my hay; I just drove them out and put them in your farmyard; I didn’t pound them; and if ever I catch them in my yard again, I’ll do the same”. Ah, the farmer said, you are a better man than I am and forthwith he went and paid the fees, and let his neighbour’s horse out of the pound, ashamed of himself.
This is what God expects of us, especially our brother Christians.
Con:
#Love In Action
1 John 3:11-19.
1 John 4: 7-8, & 21
Brothers and sisters, If God has such a wonderful love for us, do let us love those who offend us, and show bowels of compassion towards the Lord’s poor people. It is easy to be courteous to those who are better off than ourselves, and show deference to those that wear respectable attire; but the thing is to love the Lord’s people who are poor and to love them all the more tenderly for their poverty, for they have more of christ image than we have. Christ was poor and so are they Let us cleave close to God’s persecuted ones. Some people always run away from a man as soon as anybody flings a handful of dirt at him, but if God so loved us when we were sinners while we were sinners we ought to love our fellow Christians when they are under a cloud.
As scriptures advise us in Jude 1:21, let us keep ourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
shall we rise!
