Matthew 7:13-14 CSB – “Enter through the narrow gate.For the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction,and there are many who go through it.14 How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it.

2 Corinthians 5:14 CSB – For the love of Christ compels us

1 John 4:19 CSB – We love because he first loved us.

John 3:16 CSB – For God loved the world in this way: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 4:7-8 CSB – Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

God’s Love is Greater—Beyond Comprehension

God’s love is as great at the mind of God, as perfect as the heart of God

Socrates, The hottest love has the coldest end.

Plato, Love is a serious mental illness & “madness”

Ephesians 3:17-19 CSB – I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love,19 and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

God’s love is beyond understanding… bc/ He loves people we wouldn’t love

Matthew 5:43-45 CSB – Jesus taught,  You have heard that it was said, Love your neighbor and hate your enemy. 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be children of your Father in heaven.

Psalm 103:11 says, For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his faithful love toward those who fear him.

1 John 4:7-8 CSB – Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:19-21 CSB – We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and yet hates his brother or sister, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother or sister whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And we have this command from him: The one who loves God must also love his brother and sister.

God’s love is Greater– God’s Love is Personal

God’s Love is GREATER.  God’s love is a Person

1 John 4:8 CSB – The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Matthew 22:37-40 CSB – “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.  40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

How can we test to see which approach is true?

The Historic Trustworthiness Test

Isaiah 5:20, 23,  Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil, who substitute darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who substitute bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.

who acquit the guilty for a bribe
and deprive the innocent of justice.

The Life Change Test

The Ultimate Test: The Cross

John 15:13 CSB – No one has greater love than this: to lay down his life for his friends.

Luke 9:23-26 CSB – Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.

25 For what does it benefit someone if he gains the whole world, and yet loses or forfeits himself? 26 For whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and that of the Father and the holy angels.

1 John 4:7-8 CSB – Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

God’s Love is Greater—The Benefits!

God’s Love makes us alive in Christ!

1 John 4:9-10 CSB – God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Ephesians 2:1,4-6 CSB –  And you were dead in your trespasses and sins

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! He also raised us up with him

God’s Love Changes The Way We See Everything

Romans 5:1 CSB – Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

v.5, This hope will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

God’s Love makes us eager to do good

1 John 4:9 CSB – God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his one and only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 

Titus 2:14 CSB – He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning,

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
I love her for her smile … her look … her way
Of speaking gently, … for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.

God’s Love gives daily purpose!

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 CSB – For the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised.

Matthew 22:37-40 CSB – He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. 38 This is the greatest and most important command. 39 The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. 40 All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.”

Romans 5:8 CSB – But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.