Love is a response to love. We can only love to the extent that we have known love. We can only know love through God since He is the source of love and God is love. When we love God then we will know the Lord and His love and we will be known by Him. It is then that we can love others with a God like love.
but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him. I Corinthians 8:3
God loves us and when we experience His great love for us then we want to love Him back. It is only when our hearts are evil that we do not want to love One who loves us so deeply and so sacrificially. The Lord is good and only does good towards us. The opposite of good is evil. One aspect of the meaning of good is the highest form of love and one of the meanings of evil is to cause grief. The Lord loves us and shows us good. We are the ones who bring Him grief and sadness by not loving Him and by rejecting His love for us. When we do not love God then we not only bring grief to God but we bring grief on ourselves. We also bring grief on those whom God has called us to love.
He who returns evil for good, Evil will not depart from his house. Proverbs 17:13
Since our hearts are evil we can not love God the way we need to so when we come to Him then He gives us a new heart to love Him. It is also this new heart that allows us to love others.
Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 36:26
If you are struggling with loving God and loving others then ask God for a new heart. It is not within ourselves to love God and love others.
Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Ezekiel 18:31a
Either we will love something else first or we will love God first. Whatever else it is that we love before God will be sin to us and will ultimately destroy us. The Lord wants us to cast our sins away from us so that we can love Him. When we love God and come to Him then He will bring healing to our lives and our relationships. He will heal us and restore us.
Woe to them, for they have strayed from Me!
Destruction is theirs, for they have rebelled against Me!
I would redeem them, but they speak lies against Me.
And they do not cry to Me from their heart
When they wail on their beds;
For the sake of grain and new wine they assemble themselves,
They turn away from Me.
Although I trained and strengthened their arms,
Yet they devise evil against Me.
They turn, but not upward,
They are like a deceitful bow; Hosea 7:13-16a
When we stray from the Lord the destruction follows. The Lord wants us to respond to His love and come to Him with all of our heart. He does not want us to just seek Him when we need something.
‘Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ Jeremiah 33:3
Love is a response to love. We can only respond to God’s love when we see it. He will show you His love. Call to Him. He will answer you. The Lord will meet you where you are. He will show you great and mighty things which you did not know. The Lord will bring healing to your broken heart, if your heart has been broken. He will show you His great love and restore your relationships. He will teach you how to find and keep love. He will give to you with an abundance of peace and truth. He will show you how to respond in love.
Behold, I will bring to it health and healing, and I will heal them; and I will reveal to them an abundance of peace and truth. Jeremiah 33:6
There is none like the Lord. He is the Only true God and He rides the heavens to our help. He is our dwelling place and underneath us are His everlasting arms.
“There is none like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to your help,
And through the skies in His majesty.
“The eternal God is a dwelling place,
And underneath are the everlasting arms; Deuteronomy 33:26b,27a
God’s love never changes. He always loves us. The Lord keeps loving us and waits for us to come to Him and respond to Him once again. When we respond to Him then we will love Him by keeping His commandments. When we keep His commandments then we will experience His love and want to love Him more.
He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” John 14:21
Jesus loved the Father and did exactly as the Father commanded Him. Jesus has asked us to do what He Himself did.
but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. John 14:31a
If we will keep His commandments then we will live in His love just as Jesus kept the Father’s commandments and lived in the Father’s love.
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. John 14:23
Instructions To A Young Life 