What Can We Learn from the Selflessness of God's Love?
Examining the Sacrificial and Unconditional Aspects of Divine Love
You will never understand how God loves you until you meditate on how you perceive or even practice love. Human beings tend to love in a totally different way than God does.
Human love
Seeks mutual benefit
Emotional
Romantic
Temporary
Self-centered
Focuses on personal desires
Based on factors that can change
Loves if
Loves because
Is conditional
Fades when challenges and problems arise
Is based on receiving
Is possessive
Is about personal satisfaction
Is driven by attraction and desire
seeks pleasure
Is unstable
Seeks reciprocation
Is based on how it makes me feel
Is competitive
Is based on worthiness
Keeps score
Is controlling
Is based on what it can get
God’s love
Seeks nothing in return
Is selfless
Is intentional
Commits
Is unconditional
Loves first
Is never-ending
Others oriented
Loves regardless
Is sacrificial
Overcomes obstacles
Is based on giving with no thought or return
Respects the freedom of the other
Is concerned with the well-being of the other
Is driven by choice and commitment
Loves despite or in spite of
Is based on what you need
Loves regardless of merit
Loves without counting the cost
Freeing
Loves even in the face of betrayal
Is based on what it can give
Sees past the sin and the skin
Sees value after its investment
Bible Verses
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16.
For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6–8.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:35–39.
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 8 Charity never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. 1 Corinthians 13:4–8.
Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. 1 John 3:1.
We love him, because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19.
Quotes
"God loves each of us as if there were only one of us." Augustine
"Though our feelings come and go, God's love for us does not." C.S. Lewis
"God's love for you is passionate and pure, intense and unconditional." Darlene Zschech
"God's love is not a careful, calculating, hesitant, uncertain love. It is a spontaneous, lavish love that reaches out without waiting for a response." David Jeremiah
"The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell." Frederick M. Lehman
"God's love is the only love that never fails." Charles Spurgeon
"God's love is the source of all goodness and beauty in the world." C.S. Lewis
"God's love is the only love that can fill the God-shaped vacuum in our hearts." Blaise Pascal
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