Thoughts on how to be in love with Jesus 
 

• God doesn’t want a permanent love relationship with us; He wants an eternal love relationship with each of us, His human creations and His children.
• God shows how much He loves us in this way: at the very moment when we were rebelling against Him He sent his only Son Jesus to die in out place.
• God woos us because He wants children, not servants or slaves.
• God is loving in a similar way to (but far greater than) a Father, not like a grandfather.  He loves us so much that He has no choice but to disapprove (not of us but) of our bad behavior.  He (because of His nature and the depth of His love for us) can’t simply ignore our sinfulness or regard it as cuteness.
• Nations, empires, cultures, and civilizations are momentary.  They last for a few hundred years, perhaps even a thousand, and then they are gone forever.  When God created us He loved us so much that He made us to last forever.  That is why the least important child, even before it is born and is only in its mother’s womb, is more important in the world and in eternity than all of the nations, empires, cultures, civilizations, or other works of mankind put together.  God loves that child.
• Love, God’s love, is never about what I receive but always about how I relate!  “Love is patient and kind…not puffed up…” is not really about the choices I make (since choices are not my nature, only my will) but about the character I live!  Character is who I am!
• All love is of God because “God is love.”  We are able to love and even to know what love is only because He first loved us.  Faith, hope, love live here forever (abide) but the greatest of these is love.
• Jesus commanded us to “…love each other as I have loved you.”  To fulfill that command we have to understand how exactly Jesus loved us!
• The greatest commandment is to love God with all…  How can you love Him with all that you are and have?
• The second greatest commandment is to love you neighbor as you love your self.  How can you love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself?  How can you love your neighbor as you love yourself if you love yourself more than everything else?  Both are impossible!  Self contempt prevents you from loving anyone.  Narcissism prevents you from loving anyone besides yourself.  Both are destructive!  The commandment excludes either extreme.
• If you properly love yourself you have the beginning building block for loving your neighbor as yourself.  Now you have to figure out how to put that truth into practice.  How should you love your neighbor?
• Love never fails!  This is one of the core truths of the love chapter I Corinthians 13.  But if God’s love never fails our love certainly does fail.  We are human and we can’t sustain a godly love by our own effort.  So how do we do it?  How do we live a love that never fails?

Lesson 1: The origin and nature of the love relationship

Lesson 2:  Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth…?

Lesson 3:  The courtship of God

Lesson 4:  The Father’s love

Lesson 5:  An Eternal love relationship

Lesson 6: Character is who I am 

Lesson 7:  Agape love is God’s love

Lesson 8:  How Jesus loves us

Lesson 9:  The Greatest Commandment

Lesson 10:  Loving Self?

Lesson 11:  Jesus Loves your neighbor; How about you?

Lesson 12: Agape/Love grows for the rest of your life

(This study by Rev. Russell M. Richardson is still under construction.  Keep checking for dates)