Q&A Home > L > Love

• Based on what principle and scale can I love everyone around me? How do I do it?
• Can you please let me know why there is love and true love when God chooses who we marry? Why are we born? Why does God have to test us?
• Does God love everyone regardless of whether they are good or evil just because He is love? How does God feel towards Satan and the fallen angels?
• I am afraid I might love people more than God. How can I guard my heart against that, although I feel that the more I love God, more I want to love people, especially those who are Christ like?
• I am having trouble discerning whom exactly we are to love and whom we are not to love. For example I know that we are to love God and our neighbor (Mark 12:31) (further explained in the parable of the Good Samaritan Luke 10:25-37) and love our enemies (5:44). However, I am still not sure regarding some circumstances. For example, if a person or group of people physically hurt a close member of your family or an innocent person in a serious way for no reason except that they are evil and wicked.
  1. How are we supposed to feel about such people?
  2. Must we love all human beings no matter what or how much evil they commit?
  3. How are we supposed to feel towards devils?
• Is love a gift or a commandment? Or is it both a gift and a commandment? Is the ability to love given as a gift to all men when we were created, since we are a product of love? What is the difference in regards to love before and after the fall? Did Adam and Eve have to learn love or were they created with it?
• Our Lord commanded us to Love our enemy, and those who don't love us. Besides praying for them, how far can an Orthodox Christian go in loving those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, thereby denying the existence of the Lord Jesus Christ?
• What is the difference between love and lust?