RUSSELL SANDERS
2-13-2026
LOVE – THE GREATEST GIFT

The greatest gift known to mankind is love. Jesus was God’s gift of love to all of us. We give ourselves back to Jesus as our gift of love to God, our Heavenly Father.

John 15:13 says, “No greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” The bible tells us that “God is love.” 1 John 4:8; 16. Love is the very essence of God. 1 John 4:7 tells us of the love of God our Father and of Jesus’ love. There is no greater gift than love and we are to share that gift with all other people, yes, to ALL other people, the lovely and the unlovely.

It is easy to share it with the lovely, but what bout the unlovely? The despicable, filthy, hateful, or those who have openly and loudly maligned us? Must we love them also? Yes!

“Love makes the world go ‘round” is not about sensual love. It means that it brings us into harmony all together. Love is the most powerful force in the world; it is more powerful than hate, indifference, apathy, war, or anything else Satan might throw at us.

Is it easy to love all people? No, but we are commanded to do it. Failure to love is a sin. It allows Satan to accuse us before the Father in heaven. God’s love is perfect. In our desire to be good [perfected] we must love all people in the same way that God loves them. This can only be done when our spirit is transformed by God’s love received through the Holy Spirit that comes in at salvation. That God-given love is called “agape” [Greek], and it is far superior to the “phileo” [Greek] human love.

To have the agape kind of love in our lives we must submit our whole body, soul, and spirit to Almighty God the Father. This is the only path for the believer to mature. Then we can love with the Father’s love.