God is Love
We all need a reminder sometimes. The word “love” appears 57 times in the gospel of John alone. Foundational to our faith is a relationship with the Triune God. And God is Love (1 John 4:8). If preaching ‘love of God, neighbor, and self’ is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
Deuteronomy 7:9
Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who maintains covenant loyalty with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,
Jeremiah 31:3
the Lord appeared to him from far away.
I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.
Micah 6:8
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Matthew 22:37-38
He said to him, ‘ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’
John 3:16
‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
John 15:12
‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
John 21:16
A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’
1 Corinthians 13:4-8
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
1 Corinthians 13:13
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 16:14
Let all that you do be done in love.
Ephesians 4:1-3
I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
1 John 4:7-8
Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.