16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” 37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
32 “Well said, teacher,” the man replied. “You are right in saying that God is one and there is no other but him. 33 To love him with all your heart, with all your understanding and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 When Jesus saw that he had answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And from then on no one dared ask him any more questions.
16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
“You can give without loving, but you cannot love without giving.” Amy Carmichael
“Love for God and obedience to God are so completely involved in each other that any one of them implies the other too.” F. F. Bruce
“He who is filled with love is filled with God Himself.” Augustine
“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The principle of sacrifice is that we choose to do or to suffer what apart from our love we should not choose to do or suffer.” William Temple
“Can a man love God while ignoring the need of his brother?” Frances J. Roberts
“The good news of the gospel is not that God will provide a way to make life easier. The good news of the gospel, for this life, is that He will make our lives better. We will be empowered to draw close to God and to love others well and to do both for one central purpose, to glorify God, to make Him look good to any who watch us live.” Larry Crabb
“He alone loves the Creator perfectly who manifests a pure love for his neighbor.” Venerable Bede
“Remember that when you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received -- only what you have given: a full heart enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage.” St. Francis of Assisi
“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.” St. Basil
“I want to be obedient to you and to your Word today, especially to love you with all my heart and to love my neighbor as I love myself and to love my spouse as Christ loved the Church.” Bert Banzhaf
“Our Lord does not care so much for the importance of our works as for the love with which they are done.” Teresa of Avila
“Love one another that it may at last be said of Christians as it was at first: ‘Behold how they love one another.’” Ralph Venning
“Christian Love, either towards God or towards man, is an affair of the will.” C. S. Lewis
“Seek, O believer, that every good thing you have may be an abiding thing. May your character not be a writing upon the sand, but an inscription upon the rock! May your faith be no 'baseless fabric of a vision,' but may it be built of material able to endure that awful fire which shall consume the wood, hay, and stubble of the hypocrite. May you be rooted and grounded in love. May your convictions be deep, your love real, your desire earnest. May your whole life be so firm and strong, that all the blasts of hell and the storms of earth shall never be able to remove you.” Charles Spurgeon
“The goal of the gospel is not merely to forgive us, but to change us into true worshippers of God and authentic lovers of people.” Dr. Steve Childers
“It is a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and good people who have learned the great secret of life. They have found a joy and a wisdom which is a thousand times better than any of the pleasures of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are Christians...and I am one of them.” St. Cyprian, 200-258