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Bible / teachings / God is Love

God is Love, a foundational message, but do we really comprehend it?

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Without God, there is no love.

• Personal testimony; telling God to: "leave me alone",
  synonymous also with sending love away.
• I will never leave you or forsake you, Hebrews 13:5. However, we can walk away from Him. He gave the Israelites a king, (their hearts desire), 1^st Samuel 8.

God is more than just a person, He is love, He is the essence of love!

• Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love, 1^st John 4:7-8.
• We can also say; God is a Spirit of love, for: God is a spirit, and they who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth, John 4:24.

The importance of love, without Love I am nothing! -- Apostle Paul --

• Though I speak in tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. Though I have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries and have faith to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. Though I give my goods and efforts to feed the poor, but have not love, it profits me nothing, 1^st Corinthians 13:1-3.

We are taught by God to love, not by the world.

• Concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another, 1^st Thessalonians 4:9.
• Love is not natural it is super-natural. True love vs. lust, lust tears down, drains people and uses people, True love, God's love builds up people.

The worlds counterfeit to love.

• What the world calls love is the satisfaction of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes or the pride of life, 1^st John 2:16
• Even good works can be misdirected, having personal motives behind them.

We can't give away what we don't have!

• We love Him because He first loved us, 1^st John 4:19 rephrased is: (He first loved us, so that we can love Him).
  We need first to experience God's love, before we can give love back to God and to other men.
• The sun and the moon, the moon is nothing without the sun. We are to reflect God's love.

We were created to love, created in the image of God.

• God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female, Genesis 1:27.
  We are the image of love and we need to reflect God's love back to Him, like the moon reflects the sun.

The results of a pure love.

• Perfect love casts out fear,   We abide in God,   Love covers a multitude of sins,   Rich in faith and heirs in the kingdom,   We archive the crown of life,   Bond of perfection,   Peace shall be with you,   We will keep His word,   Faith works through love,   We shall be filled with the fullness of God.

Love is a foundational aspect of the gospel, if we have love we have it all!.

• Love is the fulfillment of the law, Romans 13:10.
• Love can / will heal us, fulfill us, etc. if we have the Word actively in us, the blessings will overtake us.
• Christ is the Rock, 1^st Corinthians 10:4 and the foundational Rock is love.

The church today really does not acknowledge love.

• God's love - self sacrificing: love does have a cost to it, either time, effort or money. The modern day church would rather talk about, faith, identity in Christ, the gifts, prayer, etc. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone, Matthew 23:23.

The gifts work by love.

• Faith works by love, Galatians 5:6 ... and Without faith it is impossible to please God, Hebrews 11:6.
• The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, ... Galatians 5:22.

Love is a commandment.

• This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you, John 15:12
• The first and great commandment: You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, mind and soul. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself, Matthew 22:37.

Nothing can separate us from God's love, that surpasses knowledge.

• Nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, Romans 8:39.
• And to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God, Ephesians 3:19.

Human relationships are two way streets.

• A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother, Proverbs 18:24.
• Yes, God's love for us is unconditional, There is nothing that we can do to cause Him to stop loving us! However, if we do not know of His love for us and do not have His love working in our lives. All we will have is the worlds counterfeit type of love, we will thus have been deceived by the world and will be empty and unfulfilled.

Jesus walked in love, all that He did was out of love.

• And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way, Luke 4:28-30.
  In this passage; Jesus walked through the midst of his accusers. The men wanting to throw him off a cliff, were so filled with rage, they could not see love. Also if we are filled with anger, we will not / cannot fully experience love.

Question: what are you doing with God's love?

• Are you always taking but never giving, much like the dead sea! Or are you returning that love, first to Him and then to others, and sharing in the Lord's peace and joy, having the fruits of (long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness).