Receive God’s Love

Throughout scripture, God’s love for His people comes through in many and varied ways. Through life experience, God’s love becomes apparent as His promises recorded throughout scripture show their truth for our individual lives and go beyond their application in the context of the day they took place.

In a culture where love lies distorted by a focus on self, emotional and physical feelings, and material wealth, truly knowing how to receive authentic, real, passionate love has become increasingly clouded. Yet, receiving God’s love still remains simple.

  1. Accept that you can’t fully understand God’s love. (Ephesians 3:18)
  2. Review His track record. (Romans 5:8)
  3. Understand the role of love in fear. (1 John 4:18)
  4. Spend time with Him. (John 15:10)
  5. Don’t let your love for Him grow cold. (Matthew 24:12)
  6. Seek a life of obedience. (2 John 1:6)

Respond to God’s Love

“Jesus replied, ‘The most important commandment is this: ‘Hear, O Isreal! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all our soul, all you mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” (Mark 12:29, 30)

Having truly received God’s love and being filled to overflowing, we can’t help but express that which we have received. When you receive a wonderful gift, don’t you look forward to telling others about it and showing it to them? This should hold especially true for the greatest gift of all, the love of Christ.

The Bible, God’s love letter to His people, contains endless instruction on how to live a life of love. Let’s focus on some of those ways with immediate and hopefully obvious application.

  1. Focus on God. (Mark 12:29-30)
  2. Be known for love. (2 John 1:5)
  3. Overlook offenses. (1 Peter 4:8)
  4. Never give up. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)
  5. Be authentic. (Romans 12:9)
  6. Love other Christians. (John 13:34)
  7. Love your enemies. (Matthew 5:43-44)

The Bible gives us lots of ways to show love to others, but the specific details (i.e., who, what, when, where, why & how) come to life in the unique and individual lives we each live. There are endless ways to show love because we are all unique individuals, and we all show love as uniquely as we were created.

Showing love is only difficult or complicated because we make it so. Keep love simple. Be obedient to God. Follow the first part of the greatest command – love God – and you’ll find the second part – love others – comes increasingly naturally (Matthew 22:36-40)