It’s a wonderful and extremely important subject we are speaking about. The importance of love can be seen when we remember the words of Jesus:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the law and the prophets hang on these two.

Consider the teaching of the Apostle Paul, However great our faith, however exact our teaching, whatever miracles signs or wonders we perform, it is meaningless and unprofitable if we do not have love. We readily agree with the person who said "the ordinary influence of the spirit of God working the grace of charity in the heart is a more excellent blessing than any of the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit."

Yes to be a truly loving Christian is far more important than to have any amount of ability or gifts. Love does not despise any of these but always loves the giver more than the gift and the person benefiting from the exercise of the gift rather than the mere display or exercising of the gift.

We can love evil as well as love good. Our love can increase our acceleration into the depths of sin. We can love money, false god's, harmful habits and a host of things. Love is only the answer if it is the right kind of love. We say we love something or someone when our inmost being is delighted by the object of our affections. We are on the road to ruin if it is a sinister object but on the road to recovery if it is a good object.

What is true Christian love? In order to answer this I would like us to think about: God's love and how we must have a similar kind of love. How does one begin to become a loving person. Can a true Christian be troubled with unloving feelings, sentiments and actions.

When we become Christians we begin to love God and one another. Growing as a Christian is best thought of as growing in love if we want balanced growth. Love is beautiful and if we want spiritual beauty then love will give it to us.

Consider the natural love of a mother as she attends a sick child, or defends her child from a predator or her love as she simply enjoys the company of her child. When the experience of this is recalled it can soften the hardest heart and encourage the lonely and the tried.

Similarly the love of people who are friends they have kindred spirits. This can make a depressing work place a place of joy, or a terrifying battlefield the place of heartwarming memories.

Then there is sexual love. Which is meant to find full expression in marriage between opposite sexes. This is a gift from God to be used in God's way. As in first century society so in our day, this is so often misused and perverted so that eventually what should have been the sweetest and most delightful relationship becomes a war zone. But if used as intended millions can testify that it is a gift from heaven.

These three kinds of love are extremely beautiful but by no means confined to Christians. However, the love that we are especially interested in today is Christian love.

God is love. Each of the persons of the Trinity love the other persons of the trinity with infinite and everlasting love because each of the persons of the trinity is altogether worthy of being loved. The love that we must have has to go out to Father, Son and Holy Spirit otherwise it would not be Christian love. Christian love delights in God and his infinite goodness.

God is love and that love as it is exercised towards mankind is seen most clearly in the gospel. God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son. God's love is a giving love, and gives to those who do not deserve it. You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who though he was rich yet for your sakes He became poor so that you through His poverty might be made rich. This reminds us that Divine love lead Jesus to humble Himself, take our nature, take a low place, endure suffering and death.

Self-sacrifice in the interests of others is another fundamental characteristic of Christian love. Jesus Christ the Lord of glory sacrificed Himself on the cross of Calvary for our eternal good and we did not and never could deserve it but rather deserve the very opposite. It is this spirit of sacrificial love in the interests of others who may not deserve it, that is one of the greatest distinguishing marks of Christian love. This kind of love will enhance a mother's love, a comrade's love, and the love between husband and wife.

By nature we do not have such a spirit of sacrificial love. We do not even love what deserves to be loved, namely God and His works.

We hate God and we hate one another. True it may not always be evident but rub the grain the wrong way and it will become very clear that there is deep hatred in the human heart to God and to all that is good. If we are capable of hating God the infinitely perfect one, who is more deserving of our love than anyone or anything else, it stands to reason that we are capable of hating anything and anyone that is good.

To say that God's love results in action is an understate­ment. God's love has resulted in the greatest action the world, or for that matter, heaven, has ever seen – the redeeming work of Christ. Our love must have this characteristic as well – action. Love that does not result in action has no credibility.

Therefore the big question is how can anyone who has our sinful nature really love God. The answer is that no one can really love God or his neighbour as himself unless he is born again. It is only when the Holy Spirit, who is love, as much as The Father is love and as much as Jesus is love, comes to dwell in us that we begin to have true Christian love. It is because at the new birth we are given the Spirit of God who is love that we have the ability by grace to love in a uniquely Christian way. The word "begin" is important because it is a process of learning and growing in the practice of love.

The practice of love. That is the challenge that faces us, how does love behave? There is the joy of love. We have the greatest source of joy in our lives namely God. The more we love Him the more we will rejoice in Him. Love is the antidote for joyless Christianity.

There is forgiveness in love. The church can only operate smoothly if there is a readiness to forgive one another. Love brings that readiness day after day for however many days we are given.

Love does not boast. The problem with boasting is that the most worthy of people can feel totally useless and that they have no contribution to make because the boastful person makes their contribution seem so small, insignificant. If someone is boasting God's Spirit is grieved and somebody is hurting.

Love is not proud. Where there is pride, there is strife sooner or later. Love is a great restrainer on pride.

Love not only does no ill to its neighbour it also does good. It does not merely desist from telling lies it will tell the truth at great cost. It would not merely refrain from stealing it will give generously. It not only would not injure or kill but will protect and preserve life. It would not merely refrain from coveting but would rejoice at the prosperity of others.

What are the challenges facing the Church. Go out with the gospel. The more you love God the more you want others to love him. The more you love your neighbour the more you want him saved. The more you love your enemy the more you will want him in the kingdom. A loving church is an evangelising church. The poor are always with us. Love cares, love helps, love provides. Love is the key to fighting poverty.

The church is greatly divided and in danger of greater division. Love unites, love heals, love draws together, love can find answers where at first there appeared to be none.

Love is patient. It is patient in the family, in the place of work, in the social setting, in the church, in the face of provocation. When we lack patience we lack love.

The churches greatest need if it is going to improve is not to be more contemporary, or more organised, or better at administration, or have better buildings, or better praise, or more academic preaching or more practical preaching, or more relevant preaching, or greater answers to prayer, or a clearer vision of the future, or greater giving, or greater missions, or hospitals or schools. You could have all of these and much more besides. But if there is no love the church adds up to nothing. Love will want all of these in ever increasing measure but these without love are not truly Christian. Love is not only the safest road to church renewal but the only road. Love will eventually correct every imbalance in the church and the individual.

We are to love deeply. God's love is governed by His perfect holiness. Our love is to be governed and guided by God's truth. Love that focuses on God but ignores humanity is not Christian love. Love obeys in fact it is delighted to obey.

We disobey because we are not perfect in love. Love between Christians strengthens our witness, and no amount of talking or action can validate our witness if we don't love one another. Love not only eases but can bring a heavenly quality to every proper relationship. Love sees the potential for good in every human being if they will go the right way. Love forgives when all the world might scream for revenge.

Love cannot give God too much praise and glory. It wants Father, Son and Holy Spirit exalted and honoured. Love wants the best, that is the highest good for man even down to the worst personal enemy that one might have.

It is because of love that we can genuinely delight in the law of God. It is because of love that we cannot rest in formality.

God's love is perfect infinitely tender but never a soft option giving licence to sin. Our love is always imperfect. Probably nothing is more calculated to make us cry the prayer of the publican, "God be mercifully to me a sinner", than to look at ourselves in the light of how different we would be in every area of our lives if our love was what it should be.

We began to love the day we were born of the Spirit and we will only grow in love as we remain under the influence of the same Spirit. We have to love our enemies.

God won us over by his love in the gospel we must strive to win our enemies by the love of the gospel. God loved us when we were totally undeserving of that love. We have to love those who do not deserve to be loved. God loved us when we were very unattractive because of our sin – we have to get a deep love for those who are unattractive if we are going to be like our Father in heaven.

We find great security in the love of God. We need to be the kind of people that make others feel secure because we genuinely love them. What a wonderful way to point them to the love of God.

Love believes what is true. Hope expects to benefit from what is true. Love does both of these but also delights in what is true.

Love is greater than faith because love includes faith. I can believe in the one true God without loving Him but I cannot love the one true God without believing in Him. Love will never come to an end.

Love is greater than hope because love includes hope. I can hope to be in heaven because hell is the alternative but that does not mean I love heaven. If I love heaven I most definitely hope to be there.

Once we arrive in heaven and in God's presence we have what we hoped for. Hope is no longer necessary or relevant. Love is always called for.

If true love we would know,
then to Jesus we must go.
If in love we would grow,
then in us God's Spirit must flow.
If in love I would be secure,
then I must see,
not so much my love for God
but His love for me.

Love must be in my heart,
if I have made a genuine start.
Love must be in my head,
if not I am spiritually dead.
Love must be in my hand,
if on that day I would stand.

If only in my heart there will be much emotion
but no true devotion.
If only in my head I will be as cold
as the dead
and nobody will I have fed.
If only in my hand I will never see
the promised land for God also
wants my heart and my head.

All three my heart, my head,
my hand must show love,
before I can say,
“Yes, by God's grace I have love,
because He first loved me.”