Exploring Love

In Christianity how we loved during our life has a bearing on what happens when we die. Love is a choice, not a feeling. We choose to do something for others without expecting anything in return.  Different types of love: Agape – unconditional, Storage – family, Philia – friendly and Eros – sexual.  To love is to be kind, patient, enduring, understanding, honest, loyal, caring, affectionate, committed, selfless, and willing to sacrifice. In Christianity, the Bible has a lot to say on the subject of love, as it is believed love is a reflection of God's character. God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. The two most important commandments God gave us are to love God with all our heart, soul and mind and love our neighbour as ourselves.

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We must strive to love God unconditionally, as He loves us, and not just for rewards and blessings. The way we treat others is a reflection of our love for God.

 

John 15:12-17

Jesus said this to his disciples: "This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another." 

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1 Corinthians 13 

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to hardship but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.  When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.