The goal of this lesson is to develop an appreciation for the love of God expressed through the care of the saints. This lesson will be more impressive if the new one has already experienced some practical expressions of the loving care of the saints.

• Tonight we want to cover the matter of the love of God.
• We all know something about the natural human love. We are not talking about that.
• Divine love, the love of God is something different, something in spirit and of the Spirit.

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God, and everyone who loves has been begotten of God and knows God.
8 He who does not love has not known God, because God is love.
9 In this the love of God was manifested among us, that God sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might have life and live through Him.

• Everyone who loves with the divine love has been begotten of God.
• Love is the expression of life. That is why it is related to being born of God.
• If you don't love others you don't know God.
• God is love.
• God sent His Son into the world so that we might have His divine life and express His divine love.

10 Herein is love, not that we d God but that He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God has loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.

• God's selection and choosing us is a matter of love.
• The care of the saints is not something we are required to give.
• We love others in spirit because we love God.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.

• God gave His Son for our salvation because of His love.

Now there abide faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

• The greatest virtue of the divine life is love.
• This love is Christ, not the natural human love.

Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love,

• God chose us to love Him.
• If our love for God is strong then everything else will be OK.

But as it is written, ``Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not come up in man's heart; things which God has prepared for those who love Him.''

• The things God has prepared for those who love Him are better than we can even imagine.

For your Maker is your Husband;
Jehovah of hosts is His name.
And the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer;
He is called the God of all the earth.

• God wants a counterpart.
• The Bible is the story of a divine romance between God and His people.
• The story of the marriage of Adam and Eve is a picture of this divine romance.

For as a young man marries a virgin,
Your sons will marry you;
And with the joy of the bridegroom over the bride
Your God will rejoice over you.

• There is a love affair between God and His people. It is a matter of love.
• God is the husband, His people are His bride.

Surely as a woman acts treacherously by departing from her husband,
So you have dealt treacherously with Me, O house of Israel, declares Jehovah.

• God is jealous over His people because of His love.
• God is unhappy if we start to love other things.
• It is not a matter of doing things for God but of loving God.
• The saints treat us so well because of their love for God.
• We need to respond with appreciation and love them also.
• It is a sin to take undue advantage of the saints' love.

36 Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?
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 the second is like it: ``You shall love your neighbor as yourself.''
40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.

• The two greatest commandments are both on love.
• Everything else rests on these two commandments.
• If your love is proper then everything else will be OK.
• The Lord will be first in everything.
• The Lord wants us to love Him more than everyone and everything else.