Love God By Loving Others
Love for the Lord is inseparable from true love for others (Mk 12:31). This is why we will be accursed if we don’t love either the Lord (1 Cor 16:22) or people (1 Jn 3:15; 4:20). We love God by loving others (Heb 6:10, CSB). Such love is a result of being aware of and having faith in what God has done in Jesus Christ (Gal 5:4-6) as well as by obeying the truth (1 Pet 1:22) through being habitually directed by the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22).
Pretend love doesn’t sincerely prefer what is good to what is evil (Rom 12:9, JB). We must be committed to doing what God says is right. Like love for the Lord and love for others, love and truth are inseparable. Hence, our love grows when we have experiential insight regarding the Lord (Phil 1:9-10, GW) while lack of love may be a result of not recognizing how rebellious we are or how much we should appreciate Christ’s sacrifice for us (Lk 7:47, ASB note).
Love seeks what is best for others. It doesn’t necessarily seek what they want. Being appropriate, love puts God’s truth and will first. Thus, love is to be our primary goal (1 Cor 14:1, TNT) and our guide (Eph 5:2, CEV). Love is to be intense (1 Pet 1:22, PEB), gracious (1 Cor 13:4, Rotherham), tender (Rom 12:10, Beck), and not superficial (Rom 12:9, Barclay).
Does this mean our only focus should be on others? No. We can and should love ourselves as well. We just need to avoid unduly loving ourselves (2 Tim 3:2, WSNT note). In addition, while we can never pay off the debt of love we owe, we should at least keep paying the interest (Rom 13:8, WPNT note).
Comforting others is costly but worth it.