Do you know that the greatest love you will ever get to experience is the love of God? God loved us so much that He sent his only son to die for us. Jesus was the only one that could die for our sin. He didn’t have to, but the bible says in philippians 2:8 That Jesus obeyed God to the point of dead. He was so obedient to the father that he chose to die to do His will. By dying on the cross for our sin He saved us from death because he never sinned and he was blameless. So, when we become born again through Christ, we are also blameless. And the same power that raised Christ from the dead will also raise us from death for eternal life. The bible tells us that if God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to die for us, we also need to love our neighbors the same way Christ loved us. In this post I will give practical biblical advice on how to live by the love of God.
The Greatest commandment in the Bible
living by the love of God is directly correlated to the greatest commandment in the bible. In the next paragraphs we will look into details how to live by the love of God.
Matthew 22:36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 And Jesus replied to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself [that is, unselfishly seek the best or higher good for others].’ 40 The whole Law and the [writings of the] Prophets depend on these two commandments.”
Loving God
The first and greatest commandment is to Love God. So, what does it mean to love God? 1 John 4:23 explains this well, it says “Jesus replied, “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them” -NLT. To love God means to obey his commandments. Jesus said that everything he does comes from the father. Doing what Jesus says is doing what The father says. Even Jesus obeyed the father to point of death. Obeying God with the help of the Holy Spirit is how we love God. Choosing to do His will is how we love him.
Loving your Neigbors as Yourself
The second commandment like the first one is to love our neighbor as ourself. This is the most difficult part for most of us. But in order for us to be able to love our neighbors as ourselves we need to look to the love God has for us. 1 John 4:7-21 explains this well. Verse 19 says “We love, because He first loved us.” Knowing that God loved us before we loved him. And that He loves us even though we have imperfections. He loves us so much that He sent his only son to die on the cross for us in order for us to have eternal life. We deserved death because of sin. And because one man sinned, we all have sinned. Jesus was the only one that did not sin. Yet, he was the one that had to die. The love of God is unconditional, meaning no matter what we do, if we repent, He will forgive us. This is the reason why we need to love our neighbors. We need to show the love God has given to us (even when we didn’t deserve it) to our neighbors (even though they may not deserve it). Our love towards our neighbors should be unconditional because the love God has for us is unconditional.