Virtue Love

Virtue love is a phrase used to designate love in the Christian life. Virtue love encompasses God’s love for us, our love for Him and our love toward other members of the human race.

Jesus Christ Himself taught love throughout His entire time on this earth. He especially emphasized love in the last-minute instructions He gave to His disciples in John chapters 13-17 just before He went to the cross. Here are just a few things He told them:

John 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him."

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.

John 14:24 "He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me.

John 15:9 "Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

John 15:10 "If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love.

John 15:12 "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

The Apostle John was present when our Lord gave those instructions and he echoes them in his first epistle.

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

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

1 John 4:9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

1 John 4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

1 John 4:16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

1 John 4:19 We love, because He first loved us.

1 John 4:20 If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.

1 John 4:21 And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also.

Virtue love may well be the most important subject you’ll ever understand as a believer in Jesus Christ. Your ability to live the Christian way of life, to be an effective ambassador for Christ and to glorify Him is based upon your understanding of and application of virtue love.

If you would like to see a dissertation on what the Bible says about Christian love, please follow the link below to my Desires of Christ web site.

https://desiresofchrist.org/virtue-love.html

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations taken from the NASB.