John Ortberg Quotes

Agape is something of the understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. It is a love that seeks nothing in return. It is an overflowing love; it's what theologians would call the love of God working in the lives of men. And when you rise to love on this level, you begin to love men, not because they are likeable, but because God loves them.

For love is a willful stirring of our thoughts unto God, so that it receive nothing that is against the love of Jesus Christ, and therewith that it be lasting in sweetness of devotion; and that is the perfection of this life.

Jesus' love for His children continues to be the greatest love story of all time.

The love of Christ is not a pretend love. It is not a greeting-card love. It is not the kind of love that is praised in popular music and movies.

Agape, the love of each one of us for the other, from the closest to the furthest, is in fact the only way that Jesus has given us to find the way of salvation and of the Beatitudes.

I can love a person in this life only insofar as he tries to advance in the praise and service of God our Lord; for the man who loves anything for itself and not for the sake of God, does not love God with his whole heart.

As Christians, our compassion is simply a response to the love that God has already shown us.

Oh, it is wonderful to know that our Heavenly Father loves us - even with all our flaws! His love is such that even should we give up on ourselves, He never will.

The story of Hosea and Gomer is the second most powerful picture of God's love in the Bible. Other than Christ's death, there is no greater picture of love.

In loving his own productive, generative, generous love, God loves all those ways in which that love can be realised in creation.

It doesn't matter if they're in this block or that block: my heart is for all people to know and encounter the love of God.

The love of God is not only the highest form of love, but also in reality the only love of which all other loves are but shadows

We do not truly know what love is unless we know Christ.

For us Christians, love of neighbour springs from love of God; and it is its most limpid expression. Here one tries to love one's neighbour, but also to allow oneself to be loved by one's neighbour. These two attitudes go together, one cannot be exercised without the other. Printed on the letterhead of the Missionaries of Charity are these words of Jesus: "as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me". Loving God in our brethren and loving our brethren in God.

The love of God is one of the great realities of the universe, a pillar upon which the hope of the world rests. But it is a personal, intimate thing too. God does not love populations, He loves people. He loves not masses, but men.

The love of God is not something vague or generic; the love of God has a name and a face: Jesus Christ.

May you experience the truth that he, Christ, looks upon you with love.

As the world attracts us with its appearance, and abundance and variety, it is not easy to turn away from it unless in the beauty of things visible the Creator rather than the creature is loved; for, when He says, 'you shall love the Lord your God from all your heart, and from all your mind, and from all your strength' (Mt. 22:37), He wishes us in nothing to loosen ourselves from the bonds of His love. And when He links the love of our neighbor also to this command, He enjoins on us the imitation of His own goodness, that we should love what He loves and do what He does.

God's love for me is perfect because it's based on Him not on me. So even when I failed He kept loving me.

God's love does not love that which is worthy of being loved, but it creates that which is worthy of being loved.

Since our peace lies in loving as God loves, we must strive to love everyone. The only love that completes us is the love of God, and the love of God is the love of everyone.

God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there.

Love is what God is, love is why Jesus came, and love is why he continues to come, year after year to person after person...May you experience this vast, expansive, infinite, indestructible love that has been yours all along. May you discover that this love is as wide as the sky and as small as the cracks in your heart no one else knows about, and may you know, deep in your bones, that love wins.

Your Heavenly Father loves you-each of you. That love never changes. It is not influenced by your appearance, by your possessions, or by the amount of money you have in your bank account. It is not changed by your talents and abilities. It is simply there. It is there for you when you are sad or happy, discouraged or hopeful. God's love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve love. It is simply always there.

Grace is the offer of God's ceaseless presence and irrational love that cannot be stopped.