I Love Jesus because He first Loved Me. When someone loves me enough to die in my place because of my sins, how could I not respond in love towards Him.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 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 4:7-12)
From this I understand that I don't just decide one day that I am going to love God or Jesus of my own will, but it was He who loved me first, and I respond.
And how do we show that we love God? By loving one another.
We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:19-21)
I think we can all be challenged by this. We may know better than using the word "hate" to describe our feelings towards someone, but do our actions and words demonstrate our love towards our brothers (and sisters)? Even those brothers and sisters who don't have all the same beliefs as us?
If we can't show love to our brothers and sisters, how will the world recognize that we belong to the loving God?
If we love God we must love our brothers, in words and deeds.
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