LOVE NEVER FAILS

 

God is love. Jesus Christ declared God’s love in his teaching and demonstrated God’s love in helping people. Here in Luke’s gospel he exhorts God’s people to love with God’s love.

 

But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for He is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil. Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.                                                                                                          LUKE 6:35-36

 

Mercy is active compassion. It takes the action needed to meet a need. Man’s greatest need was an answer to death. God so loved that He gave His son to pay the required price to redeem man, so that death would be “swallowed up”  in victory. In His mercy he met man’s need for life--eternal life!          

 

But God, Who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved); and hath raised us up together.          EPHESIANS 2:4-6A

 

But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.                                                                                                                             ROMANS 5:8,10

 

Even though we were sinners and enemies of God (in great need of help), by His mercy He reconciled us to Himself. What love! He “poured out” and filled us with His gift, holy spirit, and made us able to love with His love.

 

 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad [poured out] in our hearts by the holy spirit [the gift] which is [has been] given unto us.                                                                                 ROMANS 5:5

 

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Be ye therefore followers [imitators] of God, as dear children; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.    EPHESIANS  4:32-5:1-2

 

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His son to be the propitiation [the required sacrifice for needed redemption] for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.                                                                                                                                                               I JOHN 4:10-11

 

Love never fails.                                                                                                                   I CORINTHIANS 13:8A