Walking With Christ

Happy Valentine’s Day!

What a perfect day to talk about and celebrate the greatest love of all.

John 3:16  For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.(ESV)

Romans 8:38-39  (38)For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, (39)nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.(ESV)

1 Corinthians 13:4-8  (4)Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant (5)or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; (6)it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  (7)Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  (8)Love never ends.  As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.(ESV)

Matthew 22:37-40  (37)And he said 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 great and first commandment.  (39)And a second is like it:  You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  (40)On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.(ESV)

1 John 4:18-21  (18)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.  (19)We love because he first loved us.  (20)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.  (21)And this commandment we have from him:  whoever loves God must also love his brother.(ESV)

Jeremiah 31:2-6  (2)Thus says the Lord:  “The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness; when Israel sought for rest, (3)the Lord appeared to him[a] from far away.  I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.  (4)Again I will build you, and you shall be built, O virgin Israel!  Again you shall adorn yourself with tambourines and shall go forth in the dance of the merrymakers.  (5)Again you shall plant vineyards on the mountains of Samaria; the planters shall plant and shall enjoy the fruit.  (6)For there shall be a day when watchmen will call in the hill country of Ephraim:  ‘Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.’”(ESV)

Romans 5:8  but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.(ESV)

There are so many more verses about what love is, what it looks like, how we feel it, how we express it, how we share it, how we test if it’s real, and more.  Love, specifically God’s love for us, is one of the key themes throughout the entire bible.  This world is full of counterfeit and fallen love because our enemy knows the power of true love.  This world has so many knockoffs for love because the enemy knows that once you’ve experienced the real thing that you would rather do without for the rest of your life than to live with a cheap imitation.  Once you’ve had the real thing then you’ll never be able to settle for anything less.  Don’t let the enemy convince you to settle for anything less than genuine, God given love.