I am responsible for you: I will respond to you, not out of a sense of duty, but voluntarily. Your spiritual needs will motivate me to pray for you. I will protect you, but will guard against overprotection. I will correct you in love, but will try not to overcorrect. I will find no pleasure in your weaknesses or failures, and will keep no record of either. By God's grace, I will be patient and will not fail you (1 Corinthians 13).
We understand God's love only as we respond to it in Christ. The most important point in the life of any individual is the moment of decision to receive this unmerited, unearned love through which we learn to love Him and to pass this love on to others.
"God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us" (1 John 4:8–10, NIV).
Helping Strategy For the Non-Christian:
If the inquirer has never experienced God's forgiving love, share "Steps to Peace with God," page 11, emphasizing John 3:16.
For the Christian:
1. If the inquirer is a Christian expressing the desire to love God more, offer commendation and encouragement, for this is also God's highest will for us: "Jesus said to him, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind'" (Matthew 22:37):
A. We are to love God because He first loved us (1 John 4:10).
B. We are to love Him "because the love of God has been poured out in
our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us" (Romans 5:5). "But the fruit of the Spirit is love" (Galatians 5:22).
C. We are to love Him through obedience: "Jesus replied, 'If anyone
loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching'" (John 14:23–24, NIV).
D. We demonstrate our love through devotion to Him: "I delight to do
Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart" (Psalm 40:8):
(1) We seek Him through His Word: "But his delight is in the law of
the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:2).