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)
Perfect love is a kind of self-dereliction, a wandering out of ourselves; it is a kind of voluntary death wherein the lover dies to himself and all his own interest, not thinking of them nor caring for them anymore, and minding nothing but how he may please and gratify the party whom he loves.
Love is a commanding affection, a uniting grace; it draws all the faculties of the soul to one center. The soul that loves God, when it hath to do with Him, is bound to the beloved object; it can mind nothing else during such impressions. When the affection is set to the worship of God, everything the soul hath will be bestowed upon it.
Love is the commander of the soul, and therefore God knows that if He has our hearts, He has all, for all the rest are at His command; for it is, as it were, the nature of the will, which is the commanding faculty, and its object is the ultimate end which is the commanding object. Love sets the mind on thinking, the tongue on speaking, the hands on working, the feet on going, and every faculty obeys its command.
The heart thus opened to the Lord, when God is come in, will close upon Him. Abide with me; Thou hast entered upon Thy habitation. O let this be Thy dwelling forever. Only this must be further added, that with God it takes in all things of God: His word, His ordinances, His ways, and all His dispensations. With His love, His laws; with His comforts, His counsels; with His counsels, His corrections.Heaven Opened
To fear God is to have the awe of God abiding upon the heart, to be under a sense of the majesty and glory of the Lord shining forth in all His attributes, especially in His holiness and omniscience; the glory of His holiness, and the sense of such a holy eye upon the soul strikes it with dread and consternation. This is expressed in Scripture by sanctifying the Lord in the heart. "I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me" (Lev. 10:3). "Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread" (Isa. 8:13).Heaven Opened
The person who lives a just and holy life is one who is a sound judge of these things. He is also a person who has ordered his love, so that he does not love what it is wrong to love, or fail to love what should be loved, or love too much what should be loved less (or love too little what should be loved more), or love two things equally if one of them should be loved either less or more than the other, or love things either more or less if they should be loved equally
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
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)