The Word Love Is Heavily Over Used!

Love God and love others is the greatest command! NeedEncouragement.com

 

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Love is a powerful force that can change everything in our lives. It’s what we all crave and seek, and it’s something that cannot be done without the help of God. Remembering this truth is essential to living a life full of love, patience, kindness, forgiveness, and unity. 

People pull apart from one another because of pride and selfishness, but God is love, and all good things come from God’s love! In essentials unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, love! Love builds up, it does the will of God and shines like the sun and shares warmth with others. ~ Bill Greguska

Luke 10:27  He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”

 

 

 

 

 

The Greatest Witness of God’s Compassion For Us!

Love Makes Life Worth Living!

The love of family and friends!

It’s not just a feeling, and it is also a choice!

All types of love are not the same. For example, I I love pizza, but I also love my mom. That is why there are four types of love. Love is not necessarily a feeling, as many think; it is a decision made with the intellect followed by emotions. It is like a train engine being like the intellect or mind, and the caboose is the feelings that follow. God has given us life and freedom to choose right from wrong, good from evil, and equipped us with everything we need for life and godliness. 

God is so extraordinary that He gave his life for us by dying on the cross for our sins. There is nothing more significant than that! There is no greater love than what God gives us! Parents typically take great care of their children, but that is no comparison to our heavenly Father towards us. Yes, God does not give you everything you want, but He does provide you with everything you need! Learn more. ~ Bill Greguska

 

 

Here Are Some Helpful Links:

 

 

 

What Is Love? Very Helpful Video!

 

 

There Are Four Types Of Love…

1. Storge—Empathy Bond.

2. Philia—Friend Bridge.

3. Eros—Erotic Relationship.

4. Agape—Unconditional “God” Love. 

 

 

 

Since Love Is Essential To Our Lives, We Must Understand What It Truly Is! 

  1. It is more than an emotion. It’s a genuine commitment to another person.
  2. It is not free. It demands something of us. We can’t live for ourselves in isolation and, at the same time, love someone else.
  3. It looks beyond the flesh. Its focus is on the heart and spirit of a person, not the external appearance. The connection is both emotional and cerebral, not merely a physical attraction.
  4. Lust has nothing to do with genuine love. Our world has substituted passion for love, which has become very obvious in the sexual revolution, continuing to this day. Lust is focused on self—what I want or need from the other person. But love is concerned for the loved one—what I can do for them.
  5. It cannot be bought. It’s a gift that is given freely and received without cost.
  6. It desires to give with no strings attached. It doesn’t demand that the other person be specific or do what is expected before love is shared. Genuine love is freely bestowed without qualifications or requirements.
  7. It is generous and unselfish. True love is other-centered, not self-centered. It’s always looking for ways to give, not ways to get.
  8. It is more fulfilled in giving than in receiving. Those who genuinely love others find great satisfaction in generously giving to them. They are especially gratified when they can supply someone else’s needs or desires.
  9. It is forgiving. Carrying the weight of anger, resentment, bitterness, or jealousy chokes a person’s spirit and hinders the ability to connect with others truly.
  10. It desires to express itself. It is demonstrative and must be expressed. When God’s love is in us, it flows out in sacrificial giving.
  11. It is a happy emotion. The most satisfied people do not have everything money can buy, but those who know how to love.
  12. It enjoys seeing others happy. That’s because the focus is not on getting for self but sacrificing for others. In witnessing the pleasure others experience, there is great enjoyment.
  13. It is fulfilling and enables us to feel complete. Knowing how to give and receive love gives us a sense of completeness, competence, and worthiness.
  14. It hurts when others hurt. Genuine love is characterized by compassion, and mercy expressed either through direct interaction or, more distantly, through prayer.
  15. It does not keep accounts. There is no record of who did what for whom. Love is not a matter of paying and receiving but of giving without expectation of return.
  16. It may be excruciating. This is especially true if it isn’t mutual. It may require repeated forgiveness.
  17. It doesn’t require anything in return. No conditions or requirements are placed on the other person before love is freely given.
  18. It is patient. It waits until the proper time, whereas lust wants immediate gratification. If ultimatums are given, it’s not genuine.
  19. Christ’s death on the cross is the perfect example of love. Jesus came into the world. He loved to give His life as a ransom for sin, yet few people loved Him in return. We follow Christ’s example when we continue to love unresponsive, ungrateful people. This is possible because after we accept Him as our Savior and Lord, He pours His love into our hearts, enabling us to love others no matter how ugly they behave toward us.
  20. Knowing that we are loved by God and being able to love Him in return is a great blessing. It sustains us when we feel forsaken and unloved by others. And if loved ones die or leave us, we have a friend who will never desert us.

 

 

 

 

Love Isn’t Found In Advice From Magazines, Books, or People.

God is the source through Jesus Christ, His Son, and the place to look is the Bible. It begins with accepting the death of Jesus Christ on the cross as the greatest act of love ever shown. He died to pay our sin debt in full. And when we believe in Him and repent of our sins, all the mess we’ve made of our lives is washed away. Our sins are forgiven, and God will remember them no more.
His love is poured out in our hearts, enabling us to love Him in return and receive and give love to others. If we don’t have Christ and His in us, our lives are empty, and we are poor, needy, and wretched. The only One who can satisfy our longings is the One who died for us on the cross. His compassion for us is beyond all explanation and human comprehension.

 

 

 

 

Some Specific Scriptures To Encourage You:

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV 

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love.

1 John 4:7 ESV 

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

1 John 4:19 ESV

We love because he first loved us.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV 

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.

John 13:34 ESV

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

John 3:16 ESV 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

1 Peter 4:8 ESV

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly since love covers a multitude of sins.

John 15:13 ESV 

Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Matthew 5:43-48 ESV

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 

1 John 4:18 ESV 

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

1 John 4:20 ESV 

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

Romans 13:10 ESV 

Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

Galatians 5:22-23 ESV 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things, there is no law.

1 Corinthians 13:4-5 ESV 

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.

 

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