If you were made to love
And to be loved
If you were made to be loved, then perhaps the seasons of suffering and hardship when you could be loved the most are your career highlights, the seasons when His grace abounded and perfected your shortcomings.[1][2][3]
If you are made to love, you will love your friend indefinitely and thrive in the adversity.[4][5]
If you were made to love and be loved, then perhaps those in your life that are hardest to love and surely least deserving are the people that God has placed there to show you the depths to which he has loved you. You ought to ponder on your own depravity, and recognize you likewise were loved when you were unlovable.[6][7]
Thus, in doing so, you begin to know God, you fulfill the law, you become the chosen elect of God, and you are imbued with holiness, being commanded to share the derivatives of love.[8][9][10]
But be wary, because while you become a child of God you likewise become foreign to the world.[11]
But what if you were made to love and to be loved, and you hate your brother? Then you walk in darkness and are oblivious to the truth that you walk in darkness.[12]
And if you hate your brother, you abide in death, are guilty of murder, and reject your eternal life.[13]
And if you love the world, then you lack the love of the Father and are passing with the world.[14]
Thus if you are made to love and to be loved, and if you are commanded to love those who harm you, and if the greatest commandments are to love God and your neighbor without reservation, then regardless of what you possess, where you work, or how popular you are, your very humanity, peace, and happiness rests upon gifting and receiving such love.[15][16][17] There are no two ways about it.
And thus, if you express and receive this kind of love, you will know God and become more like Him, and desire to love others as he has loved you, and in doing so, you will cultivate the kind of sacrificial love that compels you towards the greatest expression of love, the very intention to sacrifice your own life for your friends.[18][19][20]
[1] 1 John 4:19
[2] Romans 8:38-39
[3] 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
[4] 1 John 4:11
[5] Proverbs 17:17
[6] Ephesians 3:17-19
[7] Romans 5:8
[8] 1 John 4:7
[9] Romans 13:8-10
[10] Colossians 3:12
[11] 1 John 3:1
[12] 1 John 2:11
[13] 1 John 3:15
[14] 1 John 2:15
[15] Luke 6:27-28
[16] Matthew 22:36-38
[17] Mark 12:31
[18] 1 John 4:7
[19] John 15:12
[20] John 15:13