"God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." 1In, 4-16

This article is about love, and also about whether we can understand what love is and define this word. Watching television, reading books, as well as communicating with other people, we often hear and use the word "love", but we understand it differently, differently, and explain it. How to know us: is there love in us, is there love in me?
  For what we live on Earth, and what love is - difficult to explain concepts. Arguing about them, we inevitably come to the concept of the word God. The Apostle John tells us that "God is love." This short but very capacious definition is revealed in the Bible on many of its pages. Whether our notion of love is true, we can only determine if it is in harmony with God. Everything else about the concept of love is not love. If God is love, then everything that does not correspond to the Word of God in terms of the people of the word LOVE should not be called the word LOVE! Let us verify this by complying with the Word of God from the one whom God ordered to carry His Word to people, and these were, first of all, His personal witnesses and messengers. The Apostle Paul in the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians in chapter 13 tells us:
  “Love is patient, merciful, love is not jealous, love is not exalted, not proud, not outrageous, not looking for her, not annoyed, does not think evil, does not rejoice in untruth, but rejoices in truth, covers everything, believes everything, hopes everything, endures everything , Love never ends".

The Bible states that love is the manifestation of God in us, it is the state of God in us and everywhere. God has no beginning and no end; also love is infinite and has never had a beginning and will never have an end. There is no love without God. Therefore, love existed before the creation of the Earth. The love that a person acquires in himself is born together with God as a gift from God, that is, a person receives in himself that which existed before his birth in the eternity of everything. And further, each following statement about love, which the Apostle Paul makes, more and more explains to us the greatness of love: “And now these three abide: faith, hope, love; but love is more of them. " Love is more, because when we love God, we believe that He is and hope to meet with Him, that is, if we love, then we have in ourselves both faith and hope. And further: "Love does no harm to one's neighbor." (Rome, 13-10) So, when people say that there is a different love: God's, parental, love of money, etc., this is a lie, since love can only be God's, whose truth is verified by these verses and these in the bible.

The commandments of the New Testament for Christians determined and determined the necessary and proper relationships between people and God, as well as between people in their daily lives. These commandments are completely fulfilled by people when they are guided by love. “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has power, but faith working with love.” (Galatians, 5: 6) True faith, true without love of God, does not happen, and this is stated in this article. Relations between people have big differences when they are based on love for each other and when love is absent.

1) When people live without love for each other, then their relationship between themselves requires laws, judges, the police, etc. People seek justice. And it is not always easy to prove which of them is right and who is to blame for those who deal with their litigation. And in the end, they often argue, argue, argue, try to avenge for the offense. Some people need laws and protection so that they are not offended; others need them not to violate the laws and not to offend others.
2) When people live and come to each other for love, they do not need judges, police and laws, because they enter into their relationship by grace. Mercy is above justice. Can a man do something bad to someone he loves? When a person loves another, he forgives him all his faults and all his mistakes. God loves people and treats people by grace, forgiving all their sins on earth, but for this people should be with God, not deny Him, but recognize Him as their God. And in order to be with God in His eternity, you need to find love for Him. God does not want to force anyone to be with Him forever. But since in infinity there is no such place where there would be no God, they who simply reject God, who do not love God, cannot exist after their physical death on Earth. God treats people by grace, since by justice all people are condemned and deprived of eternal life.

To live without love with God and people in eternity is impossible. Many people know that living together without love is difficult even for one day. But you can live along with those who do not have love for you yet this day, but for this you need to have patience. You can even live 10, 20 and 50 years, but to live in eternity with God and with people, without loving them, is impossible. People should also understand: can God be with man in eternity, if man rejects and does not love God. All this gives us an opportunity to understand the appeal of Jesus Christ to Christians, His followers, with the following words:
  “I give you a new commandment, but love one another: as I have loved you, you also love one another.” John 13-34

If we love God, then we must learn to love each other, which means we must be guided by the requirements that are contained in explaining the concept of the word "love." In the first place, a loving person becomes not himself, but the one he loves. A loving person always sacrifices his time, material well-being and all other dear and necessary for himself, donates for his beloved. And this is accomplished without any violence against oneself, it becomes a need and brings happiness to the lover. Love denies egoism, makes it impossible. For us, another person becomes more important and, ultimately, God and man.

The rejection of egoism, of our "I" is our sacrifice. We sacrifice ourselves for another, the life of another becomes more important for us than our own. This is the main thing in love. There is no love without sacrifice !!! Love is a stream of kindness from a lover to a loved one. In this case, the lover may not receive a reciprocal love. This is often the case in people's lives, and this also applies to unbelievers who reject God's love for them.

I understand the pain and sadness of people who love others, but who do not have a reciprocal love! Yes, there are sorrows and pains that cannot be resolved on earth. We carry them away to eternity, which belongs to God and all His Children, who love not only God, but also each other. Therefore, there is no unrequited love. Therefore, sadness and pain can not accompany the lives of people with God, all of this people with God will not have! It is never too late for God to become a child of God for a person if he has love in himself for people. The desire to understand the other, to understand his experiences and difficulties in life and the resulting desire to help him is one of the sources of the origin of love in himself.

Love is not a feeling, as many say in this world. Love evokes feelings: joy, sorrow, anxiety, etc., which are connected with the experience of the life of the one we love. We rejoice in the happiness of our loved one and at the same time become happy ourselves. We are worried about all his failures, grieving with him. And if he has a need for something, then we help him, despite the fact that even if it is difficult and dangerous for us. And we do it with joy, even if it is connected with life for us. A lover can devote his whole life to his beloved, while not receiving from him anything for himself except finding happiness to help him by participating in his concerns.

So what is love? This is not completely explainable. If we say that this is our attitude towards children? Yes it is. But there are parents who do not love their children, abandon them. There are also children who do not like their parents. But love can also be to a non-native person. Also, the relationship between husband and wife can be based on love, and can only be based on a stamp in the passport. Love can be in us, it can not be. And if a person lives without love, then his life is vain and empty, being unhappy and not having eternity.
   Love is such a state as if someone is present in us and subordinates our actions, controlling us in favor of the one we love, denying our egoism, our “me”.
Love is not related to the appearance of the person we love. If this were so, then the Lord would say to Christians: love the beautiful; but He said, "Love one another." People sometimes say differently: “How can I love others (by the name of my fellow workers or those who go to church with them), because they have flaws that I don’t like?” But why people don’t ask the same question to myself: “And how can you love me, because I also have a lot of flaws, a lot of bad things?” All people want to be loved and respected, despite their flaws. Having answered the second question, we can understand the answer to the first question. To love other people is to help them correct their shortcomings, and if they have physical disabilities, then help them with what they need.

The birth of love in a person begins in the process of living together with people, when a person begins to show sympathy for people in different life situations, when these people are not indifferent in the life of the person himself according to our spiritual conformity and we have the need to associate with them our whole life . Affinity and love is essentially the same thing. Only love is higher than kinship, since kinship without love is irrelevant.

The writer Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov mentions a conversation of one unbelieving woman with a deeply religious man, the elder Zosima. She asked him: “How can one become a believer?” And the elder said: one must learn to love people, and first of all, of course, those with whom we live and work together. And then Starets Zosima tells about one person who answered the wish to learn how to love people answered that he loves all of humanity, that he loves all people of the Earth and is even ready to give his life for humanity, but cannot bear one day of living with someone: whether in a hotel or under other circumstances of being together.
  We need to learn to love our neighbors in the first place, who give us mercy (Luke, chapter 10: 25-37). Without this, we cannot find love for other people. In Dostoevsky's novel “The Idiot” there is a saying: “In an abstract love for humanity, you almost always love yourself alone” (Poln. Sobr. Soch., Vol. 8, p. 379).

Another example of the “love” of people: a few years ago I worked with one woman to prepare documentation for microfilming. She often told everyone: "I love you," "I love everyone." “Isn't it hard for you to love us all?” I asked her. "After all, having love for people, you need to help them, that is, to sacrifice your time or something else." But her answer was categorical: "It is not difficult for me to love everyone." But I saw that she chooses the lightest boxes for documentation processing - the boxes with the documentation. So my question to her was: “Why do you choose easy-to-handle documentation boxes for yourself, although we have to take boxes according to their order of addition? By choosing the lungs, you leave your comrades difficult to handle boxes. If you love us, choose the most difficult ones for yourself. ” Her answer was: putting a finger to her mouth, she said: "Shh, do not speak loudly!". And this was understandable, since our comrades worked side by side.
  Of course, it is difficult to love everyone, although we must strive for this. God loves everyone, but His incarnation of love for people is Golgotha. Christ sacrificed Himself to all people to redeem their sins, having experienced terrible suffering.

The fulfillment of the sacrifice by God on Calvary could not have happened without God's love for people. This is confirmed in the first epistle of Corinthians, ch. 13-3: "And if I distribute all my property and give my body to be burned, but I have no love, no, no benefit to me." Here, the Apostle Paul, addressing people, speaks of the great significance of all the noble actions of people, when they perform them out of love, which is God in them, and only such actions can benefit them. What benefits does Paul say here? About the material? Of course not! It is said that the actions of these people are pleasing to God and are performed by a person according to the will of God and with the consent of the person to execute them immediately according to the needs of the person. Performing such an act brings joy to a person. But all this is nothing but the transfer of the divinity of that Lord’s love on Calvary to people, which we must not only understand, but also strive to embody it in ourselves. So it is necessary to understand the verses of the 1st Epistle, chapter 13-3.

Our Lord could not go to Calvary without love for people. To all people! And to those who spat on Him, and to those who nailed His hands and feet with nails to the cross. It is so surprising for people in their existence on Earth that sometimes it is even difficult to understand the act of God, His great love for people. During the existence of people, nothing was higher than Calvary!
Love for people creates reciprocal love. But not always! And it is very sad. God loves all people, but not all people love God. Response love characterizes the inner essence of a person, his desire to help people and to be grateful for everything that he receives from people and from God, to be grateful for all the good things that those around him do for him. Experiencing for loved ones, for loved ones, the desire to help them is already the beginning of love. The very same love and its embodiment is manifested in the actions of people.

If a person loves someone, he does not think that by sacrificing his life for another beloved by him, he is worse off or not, whether he loves him saved or not, whether the saved person has done something for him or not. People often even sacrifice themselves to save another or other people completely unfamiliar to them. The fact is that love does not make a choice and its actions are not associated with benefits. In the same way, the Lord sacrificed Himself for all people: not clean sins, but for all fallen on this earth, of whom there is not one who is worthy of His sacrifice.

But not everyone wants to sacrifice themselves, their time, their well-being. Only to receive for oneself, without giving anything in return, so many strive in this life. And the main thing for these people is their own "I", egoism. The essence of love consists in renouncing one's “I” in the name of another person. Renunciation is impossible without suffering and, moreover, voluntary. Suffering, holiness and love are bound together. This is indicated in his book by Paul Billheimer (“Do not squander your sorrows,” Chicago, 1990). Many deeply religious people have experienced much suffering in their lives. And the author talks about their spiritual perfection, about the presence of deep love with them. His statement is excellent: “But those eyes that do not shed tears cannot radiate shine”. In the Bible in the book of Job, ch. 5–7, it says: “But a person is born to suffer, like sparks, to rush upwards.”

To overcome your egoism, it is difficult to get rid of it. And this victory is not without suffering. Paul Billheimer in his book says that every step on the path of spiritual progress will leave behind itself bloody traces of wounded selfishness. Selfishness in people is not from God. Selfishness is associated with the commission of the first sin of people, when they preferred to do what they wanted and put their ego in the first place, rather than God.

The theme of the relationship between a man and a woman in Christianity is as old as the world, and in the literal sense of the words: after all, according to the Bible, only a few days after the creation of the world, God created people of different sexes, ordering them to be fruitful, multiply and colonize the earth. It is surprising to many readers that at this solemn moment, the Creator does not say a word about love, putting emphasis on the continuation of the race. But, if you think this is explained very simply: at the time of creation there was no sin yet, and, consequently, there were no negative feelings: everything was permeated by God's love, and this love, according to the Bible, was passed on to everyone, including and man. In other words, Adam and Eve simply could not help loving each other - it was so natural that it didn’t even require clarification.

However, the Holy Bible does not cease to talk about love even after the fall of the first people: throughout the Old Testament we meet many couples who were able to achieve the highest manifestation of this feeling.

What is love according to the book of the Bible?

Before reading what the Bible says about love, it is worth figuring out exactly what feelings are meant by this word. Surprisingly, love in Sacred Scripture is not much different from our present feelings: in the Bible one can find love selfless (Zechariah and Elizabeth), evil and sinful (David and Bathsheba), passionate (Song of Songs), chaste (Joseph and Mary), cunning (Samson and Delilah). There are so many examples that it is very difficult to identify for yourself the signs of true love, according to the book of the Bible. But the Lord Himself helps us in this: "Let a man leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and may they be two, as one flesh." In this definition, you can see two components of love: the desire to be together at all costs and carnal attraction. Theologians, interpreting for us this phrase about love from the Bible, emphasize on connecting spiritual intimacy with physical intimacy: in the absence of the first component, love becomes lust, and if you remove the second component - friendship.

Love Bible: how to keep feelings?

So, according to the Bible, the relationship between a man and a woman is not even just a norm, but the fulfillment of one of the first commandments of God.

It is more or less clear that the Bible says about love, as if it were a feeling. Does it have an answer to the most important question that has been worrying people for many millennia: how to preserve their love for each other? It turns out, yes, such a recipe exists, but following it requires effort from both the husband and the wife. This answer is given to us by the Apostle Paul, who says that true love is merciful, long-suffering, not jealous, does not think evil, does not want others, does not rejoice in untruth, but rejoices in truth. True love covers sins, is built on trust, is not annoyed and is not proud.

Bible about love

We believe that the Scriptures are world heritage, they are Spiritual books. And the Soul is above temporary - including first of all, “I” and “Mine”, nation, gender, profession, etc. All that the soul needs is unconditional Love. On this page we put quotes from the Bible, as we are sure that reading these lines will fill any person with Wisdom and Love.

“If I speak in tongues of men and angels, but I don’t have love, I’m copper tinkling ... If I have the gift of prophecy and know all the secrets, and I have all knowledge and all faith, so I can rearrange the mountains, but I don’t have love I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions and give my body to be burned, but I have no love, there is no use for me in that ”(1 Cor. 13: 1-3).

“If you intend to do works of beneficence or love, do them with a generous heart. And let none of your actions come from the hope of profit and trade calculation ”(Life of Saint Issa, 9: 12,13,16).

“Do not care for yourself only about everyone, but about others” (Philip 2: 4-5).

“I give you a new commandment: love one another! As I have loved you, may you love one another ”(John 13:34).

“Most of all, have a zealous love for one another, because love covers many sins” (1 Peter 4: 8).

“He who says,“ I love God, ”but hates his brother, is a liar: for he who does not love his brother, whom he sees, how can he love God, whom he does not see?” (1 John 4:20).

“Beloved! We will love each other, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, because God is Love ”(1 John 4: 7-8).

“Love be unfeigned! Turn away evil, cling to good! Be brotherly loving to each other with tenderness! .. ”(Rom 12: 9-10).

“God is Love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God is in him” (1 John 4:16).

“Do not owe anything to anyone but ... love” (Romans 13: 8).

"Love endures for a long time, charity, love is not jealous, love does not exalt, does not pride, does not rage, does not seek its own, does not irritate, does not think evil, does not rejoice in untruth, but rejoices in truth, covers everything with itself, always trusts (God), transfers everything. Love never fails, although the prophecies will cease and the languages ​​will stop ... ”(1 Corinthians 13: 1-8).

“Beloved! If God so loved us, then we must love each other ... If we love each other, then God abides in us, and His Love is in us ”(1 John 4: 11-12).

“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who offend you and persecute you ...” (Matthew 5:44).

“... If you love (only) those who love you, what is your reward?” (Matthew 5:46).

"... If in your heart you have bitter envy and contentiousness (instead of love), then do not boast and do not lie to the truth: it is not wisdom descending from above, but (" wisdom ") ... demonic ..." (James 3: 13-15).

“Whoever says that he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness” (1 John 2: 9).

“... Love your neighbor as yourself ...” (Matthew 22:39).

“Love your brother as your soul. Guard him as the apple of your eye ”(Gospel of Thomas, 30).

“You have heard that it is said: Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I tell you: love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who persecute you and persecute you, be your Father’s children, for He commands the sun to rise above the evil and good and sends rain on the righteous and the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what is your reward? ”(Matthew 43:46).

Scripture The Bible is a book full of emotions, human feelings, and love in it occupies one of the key places. Love in the Bible is presented in different manifestations. First of all, it is spiritual love, love, as the main Christian virtue. What do we know about such love? According to, true love is an absolutely disinterested feeling, which has no basis, reasons, reasons. True love covers the faults of man, his misdeeds and crimes.

The most famous definition of love in the Bible belongs to the holy Apostle Paul. In his message to the Corinthians, he writes that love is patient, merciful, not envious, not proud, humble, not irritable, loves the truth, endures everything (1 Cor. 13: 4–8). Here the apostle claims that love is eternal, that it will exist in the world until its very end, even after all the prophecies have been fulfilled and people will be silent.

Love for God and neighbor in the Bible

The two main types of love in the Bible are love for God and neighbor. They are so intertwined that even the first two commandments given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai are devoted to these kinds of love.

The concept of love for God in the Bible primarily means obedience to God, unconditional observance of His commandments, constant glorification and praise of the Creator, humble acceptance of all that He gives us, gratitude and worship to Him. According to the book of the Bible, it is impossible to love God without loving your neighbor before it, so the first one logically flows from the second. Special attention in the Bible of the Old and New Testaments is drawn to the fact that love is an absolutely free feeling. Having created man in His image and likeness, God gave him the will - a quality that makes a man akin to angels. In this capacity is the strength and weakness of a person at the same time, and this is evident from the entire history of mankind. According to the Bible's interpretation of love, God did not force Adam and Eve to love Himself and to keep the single commandment given to them, He wanted the obedience of the first people to flow out of the love of their Creator and gratitude for giving the whole Universe to them.

Love between a man and a woman in the Bible

Not bypassed in the Holy Scripture of the Bible and the exciting theme of the love of men and women. Despite the somewhat hypocritical attitude to this subject of many representatives of religious denominations, it is impossible not to notice that God absolutely did not forbid love in the physical understanding of this word, on the contrary, it was already the first people, Adam and Eve, who said: be fruitful and multiply.

The book of the Bible, Song of Songs, which glorifies the physical love of a man and a woman, is widely known. Both Christ Himself and His disciples talk a lot about love in the Bible of the New Testament. However, from the mouth of Jesus in the Bible, love for the opposite sex acquires a very chaste hue: Christ prohibits divorce several times. After the second coming, the relationship between a man and a woman is also clearly stated that after the resurrection from the dead people will be like angels in heaven, that is, disembodied and disembodied, and will not marry or marry.