although indeed 'God is love', yet we have to remember that his love is 'holy love', love which yearns over sinners while at the same time refusing to condone their sin.The Cross of Christ (88)
It is certainly a mistake to claim that agape-love always refers to self-sacrificial love, or to the nature of God's love. While it may refer to such things, it may also refer to a "warm regard for and interest in another," to affection, high esteem, satisfaction, or pleasure.Pillar Commentary, Ephesians
The goal of Christian life is not to avoid troubles, disappointments, sorrows and injuries-but in all these experiences, to keep free from sin and stain.
Love should be the silver thread that runs through all your conduct. Kindness, gentleness, long suffering, forbearance, patience, sympathy, a willingness to enter into childish troubles, a readiness to take part in childish joys, - these are the cords by which a child may be led most easily, - these are the clues you must follow if you would find the way to his heart.
What is love? It is a holy fire kindled in the affections, whereby a Christian is carried out strongly after God as the supreme good.The Ten Commandments, 6
God's love is perceived as amazing only when we realize that the one thing we truly deserve from him is righteous wrath and eternal punishment for our disobedience and disloyalty.Dug Down Deep (46)
I once was lost in darkest night
Yet thought I knew the way.
The sin that promised joy and life
Had led me to the grave.
I had no hope that You would own
A rebel to Your will.
And if You had not loved me first
I would refuse You still.
Song:All I Have Is Christ
Love is not defined by the response of the loved. A person can be genuinely loved and feel hurt or offended or angered or retaliatory or numb without in any way diminishing the beauty and value of the act of love that hurt him. We know this most clearly from the death of Jesus, the greatest act of love ever performed, because the responses to it covered the range from affection (John 19:27) to fury (Matt. 27:41-42).
So the love of God who is spirit is no fitful, fluctuating thing, as the love of man is, nor is it a mere impotent longing for things that may never be; it is, rather, a spontaneous determination of God's whole being in an attitude of benevolence and benefaction, an attitude freely chosen and firmly fixed. Knowing God (The Love of God, 134)
"Do you feel most loved by God because He makes much of you, or because He frees you to enjoy making much of Him forever?" This is the test of whether our craving for the love of God is a craving for the blood-bought, Spirit wrought capacity to see and glorify God by enjoying Him forever, or whether it is a craving for Him to make us the center and give us thee pleasures of esteeming ourselves. Brothers, We are Not Professionals (16)
So the question is not whether we will be extremist, but what kind of extremist we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Letter from Birmingham Jail (8-9)
Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The Four Loves