The Love of God

What is the greatest attribute of God towards humanity?  What is the greatest need of humanity? The answer is in a song that was number one in 1949.  The song title was "Nature Boy", sung by Nat King Cole. Here is that simple and great quote from the song:"The greatest thing you’ll ever learn Is just to love and be loved in return."

We love because God first loved us (1Jn 4:19)  Our sin has separated us from God and one another. God so loved us that he sent his son, Jesus, to be our payment for sins. (Jn 3:16) Because God has given to us love, we are to love others as well. (1Jn 4:21)  We should love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind. (Mat 22:37) There is a whole chapter in the Bible about how we are to love. (1 Cor 13)  If love is important to you you should read this chapter.  

1Co 13:1  If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 

1Co 13:2  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 

1Co 13:3  If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 

1Co 13:4  Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 

1Co 13:5  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 

1Co 13:6  it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 

1Co 13:7  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 

1Co 13:8  Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 

1Co 13:9  For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 

1Co 13:10  but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 

1Co 13:11  When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 

1Co 13:12  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 

1Co 13:13  So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.