No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1 John 4:12
“The Lord wants you to believe that His love for you is steadfast—and that it can ground you in the difficult seasons of life. Are you seeking to grow in your comprehension of His love? The more you dwell on divine grace, the more firmly you’ll stand during trials. Begin by asking God to give you a deeper understanding as you mediate on His love as described in His Word.” Charles Stanley
I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.
Proverbs 8:17
“When Christianity says that God loves man, it means that God loves man: not that He has some ‘disinterested’ … concern for our welfare, but that, in awful and surprising truth, we are the objects of His love. You asked for a loving God: you have one. The great spirit you so lightly invoked, the ‘lord of terrible aspect’, is present: not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate, nor the care of a host who feels responsible for the comfort of his guests, but the consuming fire Himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’s love for his work and despotic as a man’s love for a dog, provident and venerable as a father’s love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes. How this should be, I do not know: it passes reason to explain why any creatures, not to say creatures such as we, should have a value so prodigious in their Creator’s eyes. It is certainly a burden of glory not only beyond our deserts but also, except in rare moments of grace, beyond our desiring…” The Problem of Pain, CS Lewis
Turn, Lord, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.
Psalms 6:4
“Best of all, He does it all Himself, personally, not delegating the task of love, but humbling Himself to rescue and preserve His most unworthy servant. How shall I love Him enough to serve Him sufficiently? I want to make His name known unto the ends of the earth, but what can my feeble efforts accomplish for Him? Great Shepherd, add to Your mercies this one: a heart to love You more truly as I ought.” Charles Spurgeon
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:13
“So, I just don’t get excited about behaviors in and of themselves. If you see somebody laying his life down, that might be a good thing or it might not be a good thing. If you see somebody giving away all of his money to the poor, that might be a good thing. It might not be a good thing. God has to enter in here. How do you feel about God? Why are you doing this? What does it have to do with God? It might be sheer idolatry of the poor. So, I’m just not into behaviors as the goal. I’m into God and how you are passionately engaged with him. And if I see your behavior as expressing that, then I will see that whole and love it and worship him with you for it.” Without Love We Are Nothing, John Piper
And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.
2 John 1:6
“Live on Christ’s love alone. He seeks to make your heart His throne. It is our loss to divide our limited love. Give it all to Christ. Lay your cares and your burdens upon God; make Him your beloved.” The Letters of Samuel Rutherford, Samuel Rutherford.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Romans 5:8
“Weep not for me, but for yourselves. I go to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will, no doubt, through the mediation of his blessed Son, receive me, though a sinner; where I hope we ere long shall meet, to sing the new song, and remain everlastingly happy, world without end. Amen.” John Bunyan
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
1 John 4:10
“And that is the wonder of all wonders that God loves the lowly. God is not ashamed of the lowliness of human beings. God marches in. He chooses people as His instruments and performs His wonders where one would least expect them. God is near the least of men; He loves the lost, the neglected, the unseemly, the excluded, the weak, and the broken.” God Is in The Manger, Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.
James 1:12
“…whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring, to see her no more in this world . . . whether you can consent to her exposure to every kind of want and distress; to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death. Can you consent to all this, for the sake of him who left his heavenly home and died for her and for you; for the sake of perishing immortal souls; for the sake of Zion, and the glory of God?” Adoniram Judson “Father of Missionaries”, on asking his future father-in-law to allow his daughter to travel as a missionary to Burma
For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.
2 Timothy 1:7
“As he went out of court to be taken to prison, Bunyan said that he went “with God’s comfort in my poor soul.” When the magistrate warned Bunyan that if he ever got out of prison and preached in that realm again, he would hang for it, Bunyan replied, “If I were out of prison today, I would preach the gospel again tomorrow by the help of God.” Memoir of John Bunyan
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39
“Niagara stopped once! Owing to an ice dam thrown across the river the waters failed, the rainbow melted, the vast music was hushed. But there has been no moment in which the love of God has failed toward the rational universe, when its eternal music has been broken, or the rainbow has ceased to span the throne. There never will be such a moment. The crystal tide flows richly, and flows forever.” W. L. Watkinson
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