Remember that we love because God first loved us

We must note that true sacrificial Christian love comes from God himself

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. - 1 John 4:7 ESV

If you really want to understand love, examine the life of Jesus Christ.

[W]e know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers 1 John 3:16 ESV

He, a King and High Priest became a servant, and died a traitor’s death (a death of a curse) because we sinned. It was in this that we know love:

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. - 1 John 4:9 ESV.

Know that it is commanded by God

We love because:
          God first loved us: We love because he first loved us 1 John 4:19 ESV, AND
          God commands us to do so.

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.'  "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, Mat 5:43, 44 NKJV

The entire commandment system or ordinance of the God hangs on Love. The rules that should govern our entire life is based on what love is and what it does. Jesus states emphatically, in answer to a question on this matter:

"Teacher, which [is] the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' "This is [the] first and great commandment. "And [the] second [is] like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself. "On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets." - Matthew 22:36-40 NKJV

This is most instructive: love is not merely a feeling, nor just an action of pleasure, as the movies portray it. Love is the essence of the Law – the way we relate to God and the way we relate to and interact with each other. Why? You might ask.

In essence the law deals with relationships and in particular the greatest foil of that relationship, which is “I”. Paul needed to die daily, because he knew that the greatest antagonist of his relationship with God, of his relationship with his friends and colleagues and his relationship with those he was attempting to bring the gospel to, was “I”.

Love suffers long and is kind; .. love.. bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

This cannot happen if love is inward looking

Love is an action that is always outward looking

 Love is always outward looking. The notion of loving oneself is a worldly concept; it arises from the work of Freud, whose work has wrecked havoc in the minds of many Christians, as it assumes that love always depletes oneself, and takes the notion that this is not a good thing. That is, one needs to love oneself in order to love.  This is a lie.

We love another, not because of self, but because Christ first loved us, and still loves us, what ever state we may be in. 1 John 5 has the following elliptical verse:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.

This indicates that the reason we love each other in this room is not because of our selves, but because the Father loves. It’s emphatic – everyone who loves the Father loves those others who are bone of the Father.

This flies in the face of Freud – John, who is a witness of Jesus Christ’s great love for us writes that we love because God, himself, loves us. And it is this action, alone, that allows us to love other Christians to the full depth that Christ loved the church – agapao.

Our ability to continue loving others, is not of ourselves, and in this Freud is right – love must come from somewhere - but he was wrong to make love’s fountain sexual rather than divine, of our selves rather than of the Father. Out love flows from the fountain of love He has for us. Never forget this – Freud teaches to love oneself in order to love – God teaches that we can love because he loves us.

Note that this does not mean you should not have a regard for one’s self.

Love must grow – we must work at it

• Writing to the Corinthians, Paul states

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things…

• And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
• Jacob after 7 years had not lost his first love

And Jacob served seven years for Rachel. And they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her.  Genesis 29:20