The Character Of Love (God).

Love does not come from this side of eternity. God Himself is the very character, aspect, essence and reality of love.

1st Corinthians 13:4/8

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

• The reality of our world today is that love has mostly grown cold. The cause of this is simply that the world has become overwhelmingly lawless, and it has forgotten the character of God, instead trying to find that ‘love’ from the world, which only conforms and manipulates it to its own desires.

• When we look closely at the characteristics of love in this section of scripture, we see rather clearly that all of them attribute to God Himself, as He does not love according to emotion or feeling as we know today, but His love is far above and beyond this (Isaiah 55:8/9). God so loved a world that hates Him that He sent His only Son to die for the sins of, again, a people (you and me) that hates Him overall. He did this not only to provide salvation, but to show His perfect love towards a lawless creation that has left its First Love.

• Our love is also not even what we do at church or while going through the motions of religion. We can open the doors for little old ladies, feed the homeless and do many other ‘good deeds’ (Matthew 7:21/23), but many, if they do not know the Lord in a personal relationship, will not enter into the Kingdom of God, because they will have chosen the love of the world over the love of the Father.