Quotes & Sayings About Loving God And Neighbor

Reading a book about something can be an obstacle to doing it because it gives you the impression that you are doing what you are only thinking about doing. It is tempting to remain in the comfortable theater of our imagination instead of the real world, to fall in love with the idea of becoming a saint and loving God and neighbor instead of doing the actual work, because the idea makes no demands on you. It is like a book on a shelf. But, as Dostoyevsky says, 'love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams' (The Brothers Karamazov). — Peter Kreeft

The average person thinks that the purpose of religion is to give us a list of rules and techniques or to frame a way of life that helps us to be more loving, forgiving, patient, caring, and generous. Of course, there is plenty of this in the Bible. Like Moses, Jesus summarized the whole law in just those terms: loving God and neighbor. However, as crucial as the law remains as the revelation of God's moral will, it is different from the revelation of God's saving will. We are called to love God and neighbor, but that is not the gospel. Christ need not have died on a cross for us to know that we should be better people. It is not that moral exhortations are wrong, but they do not have any power to bring about the kind of world that they command. These exhortations and directions may be good. If they come from the Word of God, they are in fact perfect. But they are not the gospel. — Michael S. Horton

If Christians are all loving and full of God's grace (like some of us really are), do they truly love their neighbor? Would they catch a grenade for one of us (like some of us would for them because we truly have love in our hearts)? — Solange Nicole

The great biblical tradition says that loving God and loving one's neighbor are not two separate actions but two sides of the same action. It was the prophet Amos who bore witness to the fact that divine worship is nothing but human justice being offered to God and human justice is nothing but divine worship being lived out. — John Shelby Spong

Evangelism is intrinsically relational, the outcome of love of neighbor, for to love our neighbor is to share the love of God holistically. The proper context for evangelism is authentic Christian community, where the expression of loving community is the greatest apologetic for the gospel. Holiness - being given to God and God's mission in this world - is a way of life that is expressly concerned with evangelism. — Elaine A. Heath

No circumstance in the world can ever prevent us from believing in God, from placing all our trust in him, from loving him with our whole heart, or from loving our neighbor. Faith, hope, and charity are absolutely free, because if they are rooted in us deeply enough, they are able to draw strength from whatever opposes them! If someone sought to prevent us from believing by persecuting us, we always would retain the option of forgiving our enemies and transforming the situation of oppression into one of greater love. If someone tried to silence our faith by killing us, our deaths would be the best possible proclamation of our faith! Love, and only love, can overcome evil by good and draw good out of evil. — Jacques Philippe

How can one love self without being selfish? How can one love others without losing self? The answer is: By loving both self and neighbor in God. It is His Love that makes us love both self and neighbor rightly. — Fulton J. Sheen

God's Fool

If loving God, celebrating God, loving life, being a servant, loving my neighbor is foolish then let me be a fool.

If loving God, celebrating God though art, poetry, song & dance is a fools game then let me be a fool.

If trusting Jesus is a foolish waste of time and energy then let it be known by one and all I shall waste everyday every dollar I shall waste time and eternity celebrating Jesus the one who loves and delights in me. — Charles W. Warner

Jesus knew that all the commandments of the law of Moses rested on loving God and loving your neighbor — Sunday Adelaja

My suggestion as you think, make decisions, and discern how God would have you live is to ask yourself, "Is this the most loving way to do life? Am I loving my neighbor and my God by living where I live, by driving what I drive, by talking how I talk?" I urge you to consider and actually live as though each person you come into contact with is Christ. — Francis Chan

All too frequently in today's world, a Christian is defined on the basis of the horizontal relationship between oneself and "neighbor" rather than the vertical relationship with Deity. In this distorted view of Christianity, our relationship with others becomes more important than loving God, having faith in Christ, and being a devoted disciple of His gospel. If God isn't first, sooner or later He will simply be a nice embellishment to our lives. When we put God first, we are empowered to love each other better, even if our love is not at first understood. The trouble is that too often we ignore things that should be first in our lives and go after secondary things, thereby losing both. — Camille Fronk Olson

The Pharisee isn't loving his neighbor as God's law requires - instead, he looks down on his neighbors, so he can feel good about himself. He doesn't love God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength, as the law says: he's using God for his own ego-grooming. He's like a terrible date: "Nice to meet you. Now let me talk about myself for an hour. — Nick McDonald

Joy is not the same as pleasure or happiness. A wicked and evil man may have pleasure, while any ordinary mortal is capable of being happy. Pleasure generally comes from things, and always through the senses; happiness comes from humans through fellowship. Joy comes from loving God and neighbor. Pleasure is quick and violent, like a flash of lightning. Joy is steady and abiding, like a fixed star. Pleasure depends on external circumstances, such as money, food, travel, etc. Joy is independent of them, for it comes from a good conscience and love of God. — Fulton J. Sheen

Faith is not limited to affirming the existence of God. No, faith tells us that God loves us and demands a loving response. This response is given through love for human beings, and that is what we mean by a commitment to God and to our neighbor. — Gustavo Gutierrez

Wesley's emphasis on holiness must be seen in this light. He did not teach "sinless perfection" but he did teach that love could, and must, become the primary motivating force in the Christian's life. He repeatedly defined holiness as loving God with all one's being and loving one's neighbor as oneself. This meant two things for Wesley: God's grace is sufficient to perfect the Christian in love, and this love empowers and impels the believer to good works. We must give ourselves to God "in humble faith, and in holy, active, patient love! — Howard A. Snyder

We cannot be sure if we are loving God, although we may have good reasons for believing that we are, but we can know quite well if we are loving our neighbor. And be certain that, the farther advanced you find you are in this, the greater the love you will have for God ... — Teresa Of Avila

But we all suffer. For we all prize and love; and in this present existence of ours, prizing and loving yield suffering. Love in our world is suffering love. Some do not suffer much, though, for they do not love much. Suffering is for the loving. This, said Jesus, is the command of the Holy One: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." In commanding us to love, God invites us to suffer. — Nicholas Wolterstorff

If someone is capable of loving his partner without restrictions, unconditionally, then he is manifesting the love of God. If the love of God becomes manifest, he will love his neighbor. If he loves his neighbor, he will love himself. If he loves himself, then everything returns to its proper place. — Paulo Coelho

Every institution places its ultimate weight on preserving its own life. That is why the Church emphasizes loving God over loving one's neighbor ... The push for justice on the other hand might be at the center of the Gospel but it also attacks the balance of power in the society. Since the rich always exploit the poor, to give the poor power, dignity and humanity makes them less pliable, less cooperative. — John Shelby Spong

The six things in life that never get boring are knowing and loving God, your neighbor, and yourself. — Peter Kreeft

Loving God and your neighbor cannot exist without the other — Sunday Adelaja

Our neighbor and our world are the two roads out of Hell, i.e., out of pure egotism, that God has put in everyone's path to make salvation as easy as possible. Although natural lust misuses neighbors as objects rather than persons, using them rather than loving them; and although natural greed misuses things by loving them rather than using them, unnatural lust and greed are really forms of pride, which is the sin from Hell, not from the flesh or the world. In Hell there are no neighbors and no world. — Peter Kreeft

Loving God and loving one's neighbor are really the same thing. — Brother Lawrence

I believe that appreciation is a holy thing
that when we look for what's best in a person we happen to be with at the moment, we're doing what God does all the time. So in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we're participating in something sacred. — Fred Rogers

No doubt it is devastating. One cannot prove anything here, but it is possible to be convinced." "How? By what?" "By the experience of active love. Try to love your neighbors actively and tirelessly. The more you succeed in loving, the more you'll be convinced of the existence of God and the immortality of your soul. And if you reach complete selflessness in the love of your neighbor, then undoubtedly you will believe, and no doubt will even be able to enter your soul. This has been tested. It is certain. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Embrace the common: a Sunday afternoon watching sports, Starbucks with a friend, cooking dinner for a neighbor, taking the dog for a walk, heading to a job that is making you more humble and needy because it is so unfulfilling, or working through conflict with a friend you have offended. This and more is all part of it. So do your everyday and your ordinary. Godliness is found and formed in those places. No man or woman greatly used by God has escaped them. Great men and women of God have transformed the mundane, turning neighborhoods into mission fields, parenting into launching the next generation of God's voices, legal work into loving those most hurting, waiting tables into serving and loving in such a way that people see our God. — Jennie Allen

The point of the resurrection ... is that the present bodily life is not valueless just because it will die ... What you do with your body in the present matters because God has a great future in store for it ... What you do in the present - by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself - will last into God's future. These activities are not simply ways of making the present life a little less beastly, a little more bearable, until the day when we leave it behind altogether (as the hymn so mistakenly puts it ... ). They are part of what we may call building for God's kingdom. — N. T. Wright

It is impossible to love God without loving our neighbor. — Mother Teresa

As a Jew, keeping kosher was tantamount to Peter's very faith and identity, but when following Jesus led him to the homes and tables of Gentiles, Peter had a vision in which God told him not to let rules - even biblical ones - keep him from loving his neighbor. So when Peter was invited to the home of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, he declared: "You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile. But God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean" (Acts 10:28). Sometimes the most radical act of Christian obedience is to share a meal with someone new. — Rachel Held Evans

Sometimes we are particularly worried about things that are not going well around us, in our community, our family, or our church circle. We are tempted to get discouraged and give up. That is when we have to tell ourselves: whatever happens, whatever mistakes and faults are committed by this person or that, it robs us of exactly nothing. Even though we lived among people who were committing mortal sins from morning till night, that could not prevent us from loving God and serving our neighbor, or deprive us of any spiritual gift, or stop us from tending toward the fullness of love. The world could collapse around us, but it wouldn't rob us of the possibility of praying, placing all our trust in God, and loving. — Jacques Philippe

To a large degree we have preached our own version of the knowledge of good and evil as though it were the message of salvation. We need to confess that we have sinned in the gravest fashion by frequently loving our version of truth and ethics more than people, and even God himself. For one cannot genuinely love God while refusing to love one's neighbor (1 John 4:20). — Gregory A. Boyd

If we truly love God, we will express it by loving our neighbors, and when we truly love our neighbors, it expresses our love for God. — Richard Stearns