Love shows itself in action
Love is much more than words or emotions. According to the Bible love is first of all action and practical deeds. Love is something we do, not necessarily something we feel.
Love for all mankind
Christian love cannot be limited to Christian people. Just as God loved the world and Jesus gave his life for everyone, so will Christian love include everyone. To love all our fellow men regardless of their faith, race, sex, status in society etc. is in accordance with the law of love.
Christian love has its origin in God’s all-inclusive and universal love and surpasses human love and sympathy. Love is a part of the Christian’s new nature and will grow as a Christian develops and becomes mature:
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. (2 Pet. 1:5-8)
In Christian love the believer receives strength to love his enemies and persecutors (Matt.5:44). It is because God’s love is poured out in our hearts (Rom.5:5) and it shows that we are children of God, our heavenly Father. His love is perfect and without reserve, and teaches us to have a right attitude to all people.(see Matt.5:44-48).
Our Christian love is true humanity and does nothing harmful to our neighbour (Rom.13:9-10). Love always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres (1 Cor.13:7). Love is the driving force in working for reconciliation with God and life in him for our fellow men.
For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Cor.5:14-21)
Love shows itself in action
Love helps others (Job 31:16-22; Matt.25:35; Jam.1:27; 1 John 3:17)
Love serves others (Gal.5:13; 6:9; Heb.6:10)
Love cares for strangers (Matt.25:26; Lev.19:34)
Love clothes the naked (Is.58:7; Matt.25:26)
Love visits the sick (Matt.25:26)
Love bears others’ burdens (Gal.6:2)
Love covers over others’ faults Prov.10:12; 1 Pet. 4:8)
Love forgives (Eph.4:32; Col.3:12-14)
Love corrects (Matt. 18:15; Prov.27:5-6)
Love is faithful to the truth (Eph.4:15)
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. (1 John 3:.16-18)
Exercise:
Take some time to look carefully at acts of love mentioned in the list above. Describe how you have expressed your love for someone in three of these ways.
Describe how other people have shown love to you in two or three of these ways.
Continue to memorise the previous Bible verses and add this one to you list:
We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us - and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. (1.John 3:16)
The great song of love
Love is patient,
Love is kind,
Love does not envy,
Love does not boast,
Love is not proud,
Love is not rude,
Love is not self-seeking,
Love is not easily angered,
Love keeps no record of wrongs,
Love does not delight in evil,
Love rejoices with the truth,
Love always protects,
Love always trusts,
Love always hopes,
Love always perseveres.
Love never fails.
And now these three remain:
Faith, hope and love.
But the greatest of these is love.
(1 Cor. 13:4-8,13)