Love Archives

February 13, 2021May 18, 2023

What Is Love?

We often hear people say something along the lines of, ‘I love God, I don’t need a book to tell me how to love Him,’ whenever they are confronted with how they live their lives. Others will say, ‘God isn’t a God of love,’ as they paint Him as a dictator. The real question here, in both instances, is ‘What is love?’ or better yet, ‘How do you love God?‘

In today’s world, we have two main versions of God:

1. 1. A free-loving hippie that just wants us to be happy
  2. A malevolent dictator just waiting for you to mess up so He can sentence your soul to eternal death

These are usually the two versions of God that we either are raised to believe in or discover later on in life. But are either of these two versions the real version of God? Who exactly is God? Is God a dictator? Is God good? Can God be both our judge and our savior? Is God really love?

Psalms 7:11
2 Timothy 4:8
2 Corinthians 13:11
1 John 4:8
1 Corinthians 13:4-7
John 15:13
Galatians 5:24
Matthew 26:39
Luke 22:42-44
Romans 12:1
1 Peter 2:4-6
Romans 5:6-8
Matthew 22:34-40
Mathew 7:17
1 Corinthians 13:1-3
Deuteronomy 16:19
James 2:8-13
Genesis 9:5
Romans 6:23
Romans 3:23

More Verses on What Love Is

¹⁶For God so loved the world,that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:16-18

⁴³You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. ⁴⁶For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? ⁴⁸You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Matthew 5:43-48

³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? ³⁶As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39

Summary

God isn’t a malicious dictator just waiting for us to mess up so He can send us to Hell. God is a God of patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control; why? Because God is love. He took your place on the cross so that one day you would have the chance to repent and be saved. You don’t have to repent. You don’t have to accept His offering. He left the decision up to you because He freely and willingly chose you out of love; now He wants you to willingly and freely choose Him back.

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Back to Theology?

Do You Love Jesus?

Do you love Jesus? That’s a weird question to ask, right? As a Christian or a person of faith, you obviously love Jesus. We live in a society today that’s obsessed with love. And that’s not a problem in itself, love is good. God is love, but it becomes a problem when you make a blanket statement such as ‘I love Jesus’ or ‘I love God’ but live your life as if He doesn’t exist. What does that mean exactly? How do you know you love Jesus? Join ArieRashelle as she searches for the answer to these questions and more.

https://rumble.com/embed/vb6lg1/?pub=4ukgh

John 14:15
1 John 2:4-6
Matthew 22:34-40
Romans 13:8-10
Ephesians 5:25-27
Jeremiah 31:31-33
Ezekiel 20:30-31
Ezekiel 23:28-30
Romans 6:16
Galatians 5:1
Deuteronomy 4:23-24
Exodus 34:13-15
Hebrews 6:4-6
Hebrews 10:29
Galatians 5:19-24
Romans 12:21
1 John 5:4
John 3:3
2 Corinthians 5:17
Revelation 3:20

How Do You Love Jesus?

⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. ⁸Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 4:7-8

According to James, in order to love Jesus, you have to spend time with Him. You have to seek Him because when you seek Him, you will find Him. This is what God tells the prophet Jeremiah to tell to the people of Israel:

“¹¹For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. ¹²Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. ¹³You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:11-13

Jesus tells us that in order to love Him we have to put Him above ourselves, our family, our desires. He has to be our everything. He has to be our number one. We have to follow in His footsteps, even if that means following Him to the cross.

²⁴Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ²⁶For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”
Matthew 16:24-26

How can I know for sure that you love Jesus? When you start to change who you once were, and you start to become more and more like Jesus. When you see the fruit of the Spirit start to manifest in your life, that’s when you know that you love Jesus.

Back to Not For The Weak of Heart?

Back to Theology?

Does God Love Everyone?

We often hear that God loves everyone, so we don’t have to worry about living in sin. But is that true? Does God really love everyone? And if He does, what does that love do for us? Join ArieRashelle as she searches through Scripture to finally find an answer to these questions in her video, Does God Love Everyone?

1 John 4:19
John 3:16
Romans 5:7-8
Psalms 136

Does God Love Everyone?

¹⁶For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
¹⁹And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ²⁰For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. ²¹But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.
John 3:16-21

¹ I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. ²Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. ³Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.
⁵I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. ⁹As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.
John 15:1-10