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.

Ephesians 5:25-27 ESV

CHRIST ALSO LOVED THE CHURCH AND GAVE HIMSELF UP FOR HER, THAT HE MIGHT SANCTIFY AND CLEANSE IT WITH THE WASHING OF WATER BY THE WORD, that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

1 John 4:7-8 NIV

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.

1 John 4:19-21 NLT

WE LOVE EACH OTHER BECAUSE HE LOVED US FIRST. If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a fellow believer, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? AND HE HAS GIVEN US THIS COMMAND: THOSE WHO LOVE GOD MUST ALSO LOVE THEIR FELLOW BELIEVERS.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13 NLT

If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, BUT DIDN’T LOVE OTHERS, I WOULD ONLY BE A NOISY GONG OR A CLANGING CYMBAL. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and IF I HAD SUCH FAITH THAT I COULD MOVE MOUNTAINS, BUT DIDN’T LOVE OTHERS, I WOULD BE NOTHING. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing…Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. BUT LOVE WILL LAST FOREVER… Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. THREE THINGS WILL LAST FOREVER—FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE—AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.

John 13:33-35 NLT

Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for Me, but you can’t come where I am going. So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. YOUR LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER WILL PROVE TO THE WORLD THAT YOU ARE MY DISCIPLES.

John 14:15-24 NLT

“IF YOU LOVE ME, OBEY MY COMMANDMENTS….those who accept My commandments and obey them are the ones who love Me. And because they love Me, My Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal Myself to each of them.” Judas (not Judas Iscariot, but the other disciple with that name) said to Him, “Lord, why are You going to reveal Yourself only to us and not to the world at large?” 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. Anyone who doesn’t love Me will not obey Me.

John 15:5-17 NLT

Yes, I Am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in Me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing…I have loved you even as the Father has loved Me. Remain in My love. When you obey My commandments, you remain in My love, just as I obey My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with My joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is My commandment: LOVE EACH OTHER IN THE SAME WAY I HAVE LOVED YOU. THERE IS NO GREATER LOVE THAN TO LAY DOWN ONE’S LIFE FOR ONE’S FRIENDS. You are My friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are My friends, since I have told you everything the Father told Me. You didn’t choose Me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using My name. THIS IS MY COMMAND: LOVE EACH OTHER.

1 Peter 4:8 ESV

ABOVE ALL, KEEP LOVING ONE ANOTHER EARNESTLY, SINCE LOVE COVERS A MULTITUDE OF SINS.

Romans 12:9-10 ESV

LET LOVE BE GENUINE. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. LOVE ONE ANOTHER WITH BROTHERLY AFFECTION. Outdo one another in showing honor.

Proverbs 10:12 ESV

Hatred stirs up strife, but LOVE COVERS ALL OFFENSES.

Colossians 3:14 ESV

And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

Romans 5:8 ESV

But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Deuteronomy 10:12 NKJV

And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Exhortation: Seeking a Heart of Love for God and Others — Expanding our Love

The heart of God is expansive, with love that reaches beyond boundaries and barriers. As we seek first His kingdom, we must allow our hearts to be enlarged to love as He loves. Today, focus on seeing others through God’s eyes—recognizing their value, potential, and need for grace. Consider whose voices you might have overlooked, whose pain you may have ignored, or whose differences have kept you at a distance. Expanding our hearts means making room for those who are different from us and being willing to love sacrificially.

What Does Love Look Like?

Jesus declares His love for us in John 15:9-10 NKJV, saying, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” How much does Jesus Christ love us? How does He love us? What are the immeasurable magnitudes of His love for us? Who can measure it? Who can describe it? Who has explored the fullness of His love yet? Who has successfully investigated and thoroughly understood the height, depth, width, and length of His love? Concerning His love, He has given us His all and held nothing back, but we have yet to grasp and understand the fullness of it. AS HE LOVES US, WE ARE TO SEEK HIS HEART TO LOVE OTHERS. What does loving others look like? It looks like Jesus Christ, that those we love will experience and see Him. Expanding our hearts to love others as Christ loves is not comfortable or convenient. It is giving oneself to touch, heal, comfort, embrace, and make whole through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The world is broken and lost. The only thing that can heal and save is the love of God. We are God’s servants of love through whom God wants His love to flow to all. The unsaved, hurting, bound, and broken are everywhere, and we are God’s healing balm to them wherever they may be found. Live by giving all to Jesus to be His servants of love because we love Him. The fields are white unto harvest, and once we have brought people into the kingdom, we must also care for the healing, comfort, and well-being of the harvested. There must be an urgency in the Church to wake from our beds of ease and arise, bringing God’s love in action to others. Jesus went out of His way to seek the Samaritan woman, to heal blind Bartimaeus, to raise the widow’s son from the dead, to touch the lepers, to feed the 5000, to save Zacchaeus, to deliver the Syro-Phoenician woman’s daughter from demons, to set the demoniac free, and to rescue and forgive the woman caught in adultery. Whoever the Holy Spirit leads us to encounter, He has sent us to love. To love as Christ loves, we must be selfless. As Jesus loves the world, so we must love the world. All that God has given and blessed us with, we must not selfishly hoard. These blessings from God are for us to use to love others. Whatever we give to love is not wasted or lost; it is invested in reaching souls for Christ’s Kingdom. If we want to love as Jesus loves, we must deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and follow Him in loving others. The Church must awaken to the truth and walk where He walks among the lost, hungry, hurting, needy, bound, diseased, rejected, hated, or marginalized to bring them the good news, touch their wounds, bind their broken hearts, take them in, and show them the love of Christ. Without love, we are nothing, for God is love.

Love Costs

It cost God to redeem us, not with perishable gold or silver, but with the precious blood of Christ, His Son, whom He had chosen before the foundation of the world to be the Lamb sacrificed. God paid the ultimate price to love us. 1 Peter 1:17-23 NIV says,

Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through Him you believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and glorified Him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

It cost Jesus to love us. The Bible speaks clearly of the price He paid to love the world. The most profound record is found in Isaiah 53:1-12 NIV that says,

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, A MAN OF SUFFERING, AND FAMILIAR WITH PAIN. Like one from whom people hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem. Surely HE TOOK UP OUR PAIN and BORE OUR SUFFERING, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted. But HE WAS PIERCED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS, HE WAS CRUSHED FOR OUR INIQUITIES; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open His mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away. Yet who of His generation protested? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of My people He was punished. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death, though He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. YET IT WAS THE LORD’S WILL TO CRUSH HIM AND CAUSE HIM TO SUFFER, AND THOUGH THE LORD MAKES HIS LIFE AN OFFERING FOR SIN, HE WILL SEE HIS OFFSPRING AND PROLONG HIS DAYS, AND THE WILL OF THE LORD WILL PROSPER IN HIS HAND. After He has suffered, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge My Righteous Servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

What will it cost us to seek to have a heart like Jesus? What is the price to love others as Jesus loves? IT IS THE PRICE OF THE CROSS. It will involve self-denial, suffering, and pain to walk like Him; to love Him above all else and be willing to renounce all possessions to follow Him in loving the world.

The Cost of Discipleship

In light of the cost the Father and the Son bore to love us, it is perfectly right when Jesus speaks of the cost of discipleship in Matthew 10:34-39 NIV:

Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth! I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And the enemies of a man will be the members of his household. The one who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me, and the one who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. THE ONE WHO FINDS HIS LIFE WILL LOSE IT, AND THE ONE WHO LOSES HIS LIFE BECAUSE OF ME WILL FIND IT.

As a child of God, there is no other way to live as His disciple except to love Him above even those nearest and dearest to us—our father, mother, son, daughter, and even our own lives—and by faith to surrender to and obey Him in loving others. Love is the greatest and the more excellent way because God is love. Jesus Christ is by far more than worthy of our complete love, trust, and obedience. We must consider this our utmost blessing and joy in life, without which life is meaningless and hopeless. Jesus lived to the fullest of His potential and calling, in joy and contentment, because He trusted, surrendered, and obeyed. The Father sent Jesus Christ to love the world by giving Himself; so Christ sends us to love others by giving ourselves. Jesus also says in Luke 14:25-35 LEB,

Now large crowds were going along with Him, and He turned around and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and furthermore, even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow Me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, wanting to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise after he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish!’ Or what king, going out to engage another king in battle, does not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand. But if not, while the other is still far away, he sends an ambassador and asks for terms of peace. In the same way, therefore, every one of you who does not renounce all his own possessions cannot be My disciple. Now salt is good, but if salt becomes tasteless, with what will it be made salty? It is usable neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it out. The one who has ears to hear, let him hear!

God is Love

The heart of God is a heart of love because God is love. 1 John 4:8 says, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because GOD IS LOVE.” Other scriptures testify the same—God is love:

• 1 John 4:16 NRSV – “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
• John 3:16 NIV – “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
• Romans 8:38-39 NIV – “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
• Jeremiah 31:3 NLT – “Long ago the Lord said to Israel: ‘I have loved you, My people, with an everlasting love. With unfailing love I have drawn you to Myself.”
• 1 John 4:19 ESV – “We love because He first loved us.”

As vast and immeasurable as the universe is, the expanse of God’s love is broader, deeper, farther, and higher. None can tell where God’s love begins or ends, because, like Him, His love is eternal and without beginning or end. As David was a man after God’s own heart, the Church must hunger and seek after God’s heart of love—to love as He loves. The Church must let love be our hearts’ priority. Because God is love, He alone defines what love is, and His definition is absolute and perfect. Any definition of love that contradicts God’s Word is not love. The Bible is inerrant in judging what love is and what it is not. Seeking a heart for others is seeking to love others as God loves them. God’s two greatest commandments are both about love—loving God and loving others. When we love as He commands us, we have fulfilled the law.

• Love is the Greatest Because God Is Love.

1 Corinthians 13:8-13 LEB
LOVE NEVER ENDS. But if there are prophecies, they will pass away. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but whenever the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I set aside the things of a child. For now we see through a mirror indirectly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know completely, just as I have also been completely known. AND NOW THESE THREE THINGS REMAIN: FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE BUT THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE.

• Love is the More Excellent Way Because God is Love.

1 Corinthians 13:1-7 NLT
If I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I understood all of God’s secret plans and possessed all knowledge, and if I had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Whatever gifts, knowledge, and mountain-moving faith we may possess, if we do not love, we are nothing. Whatever sacrifices we may make by giving all to the poor or by sacrificing our bodies, without love we have gained nothing. Love is the most excellent way because God is love. Therefore, love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Paul said that nothing can separate us from the love of God. We must determine that nothing can separate us from loving others.

• Love is the Evidence that We are His Disciples Because God is Love.

John 13:31-35 NLT
As soon as Judas left the room, Jesus said, “The time has come for the Son of Man to enter into His glory, and God will be glorified because of Him. And since God receives glory because of the Son, He will give His own glory to the Son, and He will do so at once. Dear children, I will be with you only a little longer. And as I told the Jewish leaders, you will search for Me, but you can’t come where I am going. So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. YOUR LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER WILL PROVE TO THE WORLD THAT YOU ARE MY DISCIPLES.”

• Love is Fulfilling the Law Because God is Love.

Romans 13:8 NKJV
Owe no one anything except to love one another, FOR HE WHO LOVES ANOTHER HAS FULFILLED THE LAW.

• Perfect Love Casts Out All Fear Because God is Love.

1 John 4:16-18 NLT
We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love. GOD IS LOVE, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face Him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. SUCH LOVE HAS NO FEAR, BECAUSE PERFECT LOVE EXPELS ALL FEAR. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love.

• God’s Love is as He is—Inherently Holy, Unerring, Virtuous, and Enduring.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 LEB
Love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous, it does not boast, it does not become conceited, it does not behave dishonorably, it is not selfish, it does not become angry, it does not keep a record of wrongs, it does not rejoice at unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

God’s Love Sacrificed His Utmost, Jesus Christ, for Our Redemption.

Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. Before we were conceived, God prepared Jesus Christ to be the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world to redeem us from sin, death, and hell, making us His own. What love is this that would lay down One’s own life to save the undeserving? What love is this that would cause the Son of God to empty Himself and put on flesh to come and die in our place to save us? What love is this that God would willingly sacrifice His utmost, Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, to make provision for humanity’s salvation? What then will we do for Him because of love?

• Will we give Him our utmost?
• Will we obey Him to the utmost?
• Will we worship Him to the utmost?
• Will we love Him to the utmost?
• Will we sacrifice the utmost for Him?
• Will we seek Him to the utmost?
• Will we serve Him with the utmost?

Expanding our Hearts to Love as Christ Loves

Only the Holy Spirit can expand our hearts to love as Christ loves. We must first surrender and let the Holy Spirit take over our hearts in their entirety. Without our trusting submission, our natural self will always oppose the Holy Spirit. We will have perpetual struggles and conflicts between God’s way and our way. There can be only one Lord and Master in our lives. Therefore, we must live dead to self and alive to Jesus Christ. In that trusting submission to God, the Holy Spirit can purify us and give us a new heart, one that is entirely after His own. We must consider our lives His to do as He wills. This involves all our resources. Pray for these areas:

• Ask God to break our hearts for what breaks His.
• Pray for increased compassion and empathy toward those we find difficult to love.
• Confess areas of prejudice, indifference, and self-centeredness, and ask the Holy Spirit to help us see people as Jesus sees them.
• Intercede for specific relationships where we need grace to love more deeply, and for wisdom to express that love in meaningful ways.