Wednesday 7 June 2017

We Must Love

 We Must Love
Jesus when asked,
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 
Jesus replied: “ ‘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.’  
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:36-40.
Earlier in Matthew’s gospel Jesus is recorded as saying,
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  
But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,...” Matthew 5:43,44
We must love. We must love God, our neighbour even our enemy. It is a commandment from God. The apostle Paul even defines what Christian love is when he wrote,
“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....
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. 
But the greatest of these is love.”  
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a,13.
If we claim to be believers in Christ we must love unconditionally. God requires that of us. The apostle John writes,
“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.  
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 loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.....  
We love because he first loved us.  
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 4:7-11, 19-21.
Nothing could be more clear. We as believers in Christ we must love unconditionally.
Please think about it.

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