Love is a verb and an action and not a feeling. Somehow we all know that because we know that when someone says, “I love you”, it does not necessarily mean that they do. We want to see their love in action. Love also is who someone is and love flows from the person who loves. Love does not come from the recipient but from the one who loves. If it comes from the recipient then it is a conditional love that is a “I love you because…” and that kind of love will never sustain a relationship or marriage. Love must come from the one who loves. Sometimes that love is returned and sometimes it is not returned. That is the risk that the one who loves has to take. God took that risk with Adam and Eve when He created them and He has taken that risk with us.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. I John 4:7,8
The only way that we can love is if we know God. This word “know” means to have an intimate relationship with and not merely knowing about someone. God is love and the one who does not love does not know God.
We love, because He first loved us. I john 4:19
The one who loves can love because they have first experienced His love and they, in turn, can love as God has loved them.
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.
I John 4:16
Those who have come to know and have believed the love that God has for them will abide in God and His love and God will abide in them. The only way that we can come to know God and His love is to acknowledge that we are totally undeserving of His love and not only that, but we deserve judgment and death, because we have also sinned as Adam and Eve sinned. We have exchanged the truth about God for a lie and have worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator. The Lord made it very clear to Adam.
The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Genesis 2:16,17
This passage of Scripture answers the question of, “How can a loving God send people to hell?”. God is a loving God and He sends no one to hell. Each person who ends up in hell sends their own self to hell. Adam and Eve did not have to eat the fruit. The Lord said that if they did they would die. The Lord is faithful to His Word. He does not desire anyone to go to hell. He said He made hell for the devil and the demons, who rebelled against Him. Sin is rebelling against God. Adam and Eve rebelled against a loving God who made the consequences very clear. They would die. Sin is going against what the Lord says in His Word, which our own conscience also bears witness against us by the guilt that we feel. Even though as we continue to rebel we do not always feel the guilt it is never the less still there. Guilt is of the spirit which was made to commune with God so God is the only One who can remove the guilt.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John 3:16
The Lord removes our guilt when we believe in His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. He washes us clean on the inside and makes us pure. He gives us a new heart and puts a new spirit within us. We no longer want to sin but we want to please Him. We become a new creation in Christ. The old things pass away and He has a new life for us.
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ II Corinthians 5:17
Jesus Christ came to reconcile us to God and to restore us to that loving relationship with God so that we would not die in our sin and spend eternity in hell.
The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
II Peter 3:9
Repentance is turning from your sin to the Lord. As long as you are in your sin you will never know the love of God. He wants you to know Him and be in relationship with Him and live in His love. It is never too late to come into a relationship with Jesus Christ, that is, until you die, and then it is too late. If you do not choose Jesus Christ to be in your life, in whom is life, then by default you have chosen death and to be with the devil in hell for all eternity, where the torment never ends.
The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
John 1:12
Ask Him in and you will receive Him. Seek Him and you will find Him.
How to Find and Keep Love 