Loving others can be extremely hard. It’s easy to love people that you find “lovable,” but where it gets tricky is when you are dealing with people who are hard to love.
As Christians, we are called to not just love those that are easy to love, but all people. That means the easy to love, the hard to love, and the nearly impossible to love.
Lucky for us, we have the greatest example to follow because not only does God love us unconditionally, but God is love. The only way we can learn to truly love others is by first learning to love God.
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God teaches us throughout the entirety of the Bible that His love is perfect, unconditional, inspiring, strong, forgiving, enduring, faithful, and so much more!
God’s love for each of us is way deeper and way stronger than you can ever imagine. By leaning into this love and learning what agape love looks like, we too can learn to love in an unconditional, unrelenting way.
The thing about God’s love is it doesn’t come earned. There is nothing we can do as humans to increase God’s love for us, nor is there anything we can do to lessen His love for us.
It’s constant.
It’s unwavering.
It’s enduring.
God wants us to work towards having this love for not only Him but for others as well.
In Matthew 22:37-39, He commands us, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’“
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Here are 15 Bible verses to remind you of the gift of love God has given to us and wants us to share with others:
1 John 4:8 –
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
John 15:12-13 –
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Ruth 1:16-17 –
“But Ruth replied, ‘Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely if even death separates you and me.’When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her.”
1 Peter 4:8 –
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”
1 John 4:7 –
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.”
Colossians 3:12-14 –
“You are the people of God; he loved you and chose you for his own. So then, you must clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Be tolerant with one another and forgive one another whenever any of you has a complaint against someone else. You must forgive one another just as the Lord has forgiven you. And to all these qualities add love, which binds all things together in perfect unity.”
1 John 4:9-11 –
“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.”
Luke 6:35 –
“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.”
Song of Solomon 8:6-7 –
“My beloved speaks and says to me:
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm;
for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.
Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can floods drown it.
If one offered for love
all the wealth of his house,
it would be utterly scorned.”
1 John 4:18-19 –
“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.”
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 –
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
Proverbs 4:23 –
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
Romans 12:9-16 –
“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another.”
Hebrews 13:2 –
“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”
Ephesians 4:2 –
“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.”