"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3:1) In the love of God, let us also love one another.

No power or force on earth can be stronger than love. And God's love is the greatest love of all. By His love, we obtained salvation. By loving Him and then our neighbors, we manifest such salvation. We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).

The strongest thematic message in the Bible, which contains the Word of God, is God's love. Everything revolves around God's love. God, who created the universe by His Word, is the source of love, which is love in its truest, purest and perfect form.

Only those who love truly are assured of salvation. Unless a man loves God and the people around him, he is not saved. How can anyone proclaim himself saved if he does not love his brother?

Let us grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of God is. God's love endures forever (Psalm 118:1). The earth is filled with God's love (Psalm 119:64). His love is even better than life (Psalm 63:3) and surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:18).

By His love, He sent Jesus Christ to the world. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).

"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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loves us and sent His son as atoning sacrifice for our sins" (I John 4:9-10).

"God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). "In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will - to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves" (Ephesians 1:5-6).

"Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions - it is by grace you have been saved" (Ephesians 2:4-5).

A question that some people ask is if God really loves all men, why would He allow the sinners to be punished. Our God, who is rich in love, reigns with justice and righteousness. "The Lord is slow to anger, abounding in love and forgiving sin and rebellion. Yet He does not leave the guilty unpunished" (Numbers 14:8). But the Lord, God of heaven, the great and awesome God, "keeps His covenant of love with those who love Him and obey His commands" (Nehemiah 1:15).

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has endorsed love for God and among us. "For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love" (Galatians 5:6).

Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command" (John 15:13-14). His commands: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. And all the Law and the prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:37-40).

He even exhorts us to love our enemies. "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you that you may be sons of your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:44). By loving each other, we will be worthy of His love. "Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:34-35).

According to Paul, love is the fulfillment of the law. "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:8-10).

How can we show our love to God and to our fellowmen? Jesus Christ said that if we love Him, we will obey what He commands. "Whoever has may commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by my Father, and too will love Him and show myself to him" (John 14:21).

Jesus said: "If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching" (John 14:23-24).

The apostle John said, "Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves His child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out His commands. This is love for God: to obey His commands" (1 John 5:1-3).

"If anyone says 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And He has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother" (1 John 4:20-21).

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth" (I John 3:16-18).

Paul described love this way. "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails" (I Corinthians 13:4-8).

Love is important, because by this we know that we have eternal life. John said that "we know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers" (I John 3:14).

With love in our hearts, we have the assurance and joy of salvation in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like Him. 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" (1 John 4:16-18).

Three apostles of Jesus Christ - John, Peter and Paul - have all encouraged us to love one another as a testimony of God's salvation. John said that love comes from God and that God is love. "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:7-8).

Peter said that love defeats sins. "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins (I Peter 4:8). Paul said that of faith, hope and love, the greatest is love (I Corinthians 13:13). The first fruit of the Holy Spirit is love (Galatians 5:22-23). Love binds all good virtues in perfect unity (Colossians 3:14).

Paul said that the gift to do miracles would be nothing without love. "If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have no love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have a faith that can move mountains but have no love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have no love, I gain nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).

"If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us" (1 John 4:15-16). God, Himself, makes us capable of love through the Holy Spirit. "God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us" (Romans 5:5).

What is agape love? (Unconditional love)

The Greek word "agape" is often translated "love" in the New Testament. How is "agape love" different from other types of love? The essence of agape love is self-sacrifice. Unlike our English word love, agape is not used in the Bible to refer to romantic or sexual love. Nor does it refer to close friendship or brotherly love, for which philia is used. Nor does agape mean charity, a term which the King James translators carried over from the Latin. Agape love is unique and is distinguished by its nature and character.

Agape is love which is of and from God, whose very nature is love itself. The Apostle John affirms this in 1 John 4:8: God is love. God does not merely love; He is love itself. Everything God does flows from His love. But it is important to remember that God's love is not a mushy, sentimental love such as we often hear portrayed. God loves because that is His nature and the expression of His being. He loves the unlovable and the unlovely (you & me), not because we deserve to be loved, but because it is His nature to do so, and He must be true to His nature and character. God's love is displayed most clearly at the Cross, where Christ died for the unworthy creatures who were dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), not because we did anything to deserve it, but God commends His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). The object of agape love never does anything to merit His love. We are the undeserving recipients upon whom He lavishes that love. His love was demonstrated when He sent His Son into the world to seek and save that which was lost (Luke 19:10), and to provide eternal life to those He sought and saved. He paid the ultimate sacrifice for those He loves.

In the same way, we are to love others sacrificially. Jesus gave the parable of the Good Samaritan as an example of sacrifice for the sake of others, even for those who may care nothing at all for us, or even hate us, as the Jews did the Samaritans. Sacrificial love is not based on a feeling, but a determined act of the will, a joyful resolve to put the welfare of others above our own. But this type of love does not come naturally to humans. Because of our fallen nature, we are incapable of producing such a love. If we are to love as God loves, that love that agape can only come from its true Source. This is the love which has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit given to us when we became His children (Romans 5:5). Because that love is now in our hearts, we can obey Jesus who said, I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. As I have loved you, you should also love one another (John 13:34). This new commandment involves loving one another as He loved us sacrificially even to the point of death. But again, it is clear that only God can generate within us the kind of self-sacrificing love which is the proof that we are His children. By this we have known the love of God, because He laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers (1 John 3:16). Because of God's love toward us, we are now able to love one another.

Understanding why God love us?

God does not love us because we are lovable or because we deserve His love. If anything, the opposite is true. The state of mankind since the fall is one of rebellion and disobedience. Jeremiah 17:9 describes man's inner condition: The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? Our innermost beings are so corrupted by sin that even we don't realize the extent to which sin has tainted us. In our natural state, we do not seek God; we do not love God; we do not desire God. Romans 3:10-12 clearly presents the state of the natural, unregenerate person: There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one. How then is it possible for a holy, righteous, and perfect God to love such creatures? To understand this we must understand something of the nature and character of God.

First John 4:8 and 16 tell us that God is love. Never was a more important declaration made than this; never was more meaning crowded into a few words than in this short sentence God is love. This is a profound statement. God doesn't just love; He is love. His nature and essence are love. Love permeates His very being and infuses all His other attributes, even His wrath and anger. Because God's very nature is love, He must demonstrate love, just as He must demonstrate all His attributes because doing so glorifies Him. Glorifying God is the highest, the best, and the most noble of all acts, so, naturally, glorifying Himself is what He must do, because He is the highest and the best, and He deserves all glory.

Since it is God's essential nature to love, He demonstrates His love by lavishing it on undeserving people who are in rebellion against Him. He demonstrates this sacrificial love by sending His Son to the cross to pay the penalty for our sin (1 John 4:10), by drawing us to Himself (John 6:44), by forgiving us of our rebellion against Him, and by sending His Holy Spirit to dwell within us, thereby enabling us to love as He loves. He did this in spite of the fact that we did not deserve it. "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

Anyone who ignores God's love, who rejects Christ as Savior, who denies the Savior who bought him (2 Peter 2:1) that person will be subject to God's wrath for eternity (Romans 1:18), not His love (Romans 6:23). God loves everyone unconditionally in that He shows mercy to everyone. God conditionally loves only those who place their faith in His Son for salvation (John 3:36). Only those who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will experience God's love for eternity.

God's love is personal. He knows each of us individually and loves us personally. His is a mighty love that has no beginning and no end. It is this experiencing of God's love that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. Why does God love us? It is because of who He is: "God is love."

Who can separate us from the love of Christ?
(Romans 8:35-39)

Can tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, not life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, not any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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The one scripture that best describes God's love is (John 3:16): "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life" as stated above. No greater love has nor will be known to man that God Himself would come to earth, lay down His life to die on an old wooden cross to pardon a sinful human race, bringing about reconciliation and fellowship once again between Himself and mankind.

However, just reading these truths or facts does not automatically make one a Christian, nor does it give one access through the gates of heaven upon death. The scriptures are clear that Salvation is a "Gift" of God, by His grace (undeserved merit); but their are some requirements each person must understand concerning Salvation. 1) Confession that you are a sinner, unable to save yourself from your hopeless condition. 2) A full surrender of ones life over to God.

To learn more about repentence and salvation please click on the graphic below.

The fact that the God of the whole universe loves you and me so much that He would give His life to pay our sin-debt, pardon us and offer eternal life with Him forever, verses NO chance for salvation and eternal seporation from God for all eternity, should make anyone jump at the chance to repent of our sin and want to start a personal relationship with God Almighty. God is saying to you right now: "I'm not mad at you, I'm just trying to get your attention and show you how much I love and care about you. Don't you think it's time we talked!"