I) LOVE DEFINED BIBLICALLY
John 3:16 (ESV) — (16) “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
II) GOD IS LOVE
1 John 4:8 (ESV) — (8) Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:16 (ESV) — (16) So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
Genesis 2:17 (ESV) — (17) but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Romans 5:19 (ESV) — (19) For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
1 Corinthians 15:45 (ESV) — (45) Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
III) GOD GIVES US A DEFINITION OF LOVE
1 Corinthians 13:4–7 (ESV) — (4) Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant (5) or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; (6) it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. (7) Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Luke 11:11–13 (ESV) — (11) What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; (12) or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? (13) If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
IV) HOW CAN WE PROVE WE LOVE GOD
Matthew 22:37–40 (ESV) — (37) And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. (38) This is the great and first commandment. (39) And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. (40) On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Romans 12:1 (ESV) — (1) I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Luke 12:27 (ESV) — (27) Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
1 John 4:16 (ESV) — (16) So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
1 John 4:19 (ESV) — (19) We love because he first loved us.