Manifest God's Love for Others

"God is love."
—1 John 4:8 ¹

"If anyone says, 'I love God,' but hates his brother [or sister], he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother [and sister] whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. This is the commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother [and sister]."
—1 John 4:20

Love is not just a thought, feeling, or an emotion that you create or possess. Love is the essence of God's Being, whose Presence is the energy and spiritual reality that grounds, sustains, permeates, and is inherent in and at the depth of all of creation. God's love is unconditional and freely given to all who accept it. Such love is active, generative, expansive and, since it derives from the essence of our eternal God, it is never diminished nor exhausted. The paradox is that love only increases and expands the more it is given away.

You are called to respond with love for God, others, yourself, and all of creation. You are able to love because God first loved you (1 John 4:19). Nothing will ever separate you from God's unconditional and selfless love. "For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).

The inherent dignity of all persons arises from being created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:26-27), even if that likeness is tarnished by sin. Jesus the Christ is the exemplar of that image and the human face, mind, and unconditional love of God for us. We are all called to be children of God ("See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are" (1 John 3:1)). Any love you give arises from and is enabled by your cooperation with the grace of God's unconditional love for all of creation.

You are commanded to love others as God loves you (John 13:34-35). You are called through an intentional act of your will to allow God's love to arise from within the center of your innermost being and be manifested to others through your presence, thoughts, words, and actions. In essence, with this love, and guided and empowered by the Holy Spirit, you intentionally will for those you encounter or influence to become the best versions of themselves that God intends for them to become.

This is why you can be called by the Lord to love your "enemies," even if you don't "like" them, or despise their words and actions. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father...." (Matthew 5:43-45). At the very least, you are called to pray with love for your enemies to surrender, repent of their sins, and to be open to being transformed by our loving God.

Hopefully, your "enemies" and others are doing the same for you.

1 God's love, being perfect, unlimited, and eternal can never be fully understood nor defined by limited, human minds, who can only use symbolic language to try to express what the term "love" means from their experience. The New Testament was orinially written in the Greek language, which has four primary words to describe various experiences of love: agapē (pronounced "ag-ah-pay"), storge, phileō, and eros. English translations of the New Testament have primarily used the single word "love" to express these four types of experiences." For example, the word "love," as used in the two passages quoted at the beginning of this post, is a translation of the Greek word agapē, meaning an unconditional, generous, sacrifical, and self-giving love that is not based on emotions, but is an intentional and deliberate assent and act of the will as a matter of principle and duty (see also, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life" (John 3:16); "So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13). The word storge refers to natural, familial love, such as the love between a parent and child (e.g. "For the Father loves his Son and shows him everything that he himself does, and he will show him greater works than these, so that you may be amazed"(John 5:20). The word phileō refers to the love, affections, or friendship between friends (e.g."So the sisters [of Lazarus] sent word to him, saying, 'Master, the one you love is ill'” (John 3:11); The word eros is that love that arises from the passions and desires for some one or some thing, which word is not found in the New Testament.