What Kind of love is That? The Love That Counts

The demonstration of love was presented for a good reason. God loved us so much that He sacrificed His only begotten Son for all the evil mankind committed. Justice needed to be satisfied so God could have a relationship with us, and then fellowship with us. We dug a hole so deep in being separated from God through sin, we couldn’t get ourselves out of it. The hell Jesus went through literally, goes far beyond anything we could imagine as punishment. Bad behavior must be met with strong deterrent measures, but the sin of mankind was sealed in our hearts making us spiritually dead to God, and impossible to reform. We are now new creatures in Christ Jesus, through the miracle of the new birth we have a new heart, totally alive to God. This new heart is capable of expressing the agape love of God towards others once developed in us. We can love like the Lord loves His people. The unadulterated, undeserved, long suffering, and understanding love of God is to be used by us to love one another. Natural human philia love, the intimate authentic friendship love, will not help in loving the unlovely. Liking the person has nothing to do with the actions of agape love. We were God’s enemies when He sent Jesus to die for us (Romans 5:10). Since God loved us, we ought to love one another.