Love in the Christian sense is not sentimentality; it is not a gushing, emotional indulgence of some loved one. Love is what we see in the cross. It is what Christ showed when he laid down his perfect life for sinners. It is important to bear in mind that it is love for sinners. Jesus does not mean the kind of love that we so commonly have in mind when we use the term, a love for someone whom we find supremely attractive (sinners are not attractive to a holy God). Nor is it a love for those bound to us by natural ties, such as family members (God is not bound by natural ties to sinful people). Nor is it the love of friendship, a love drawn out from us by those we find congenial (God does not find sin or those who practice sin congenial). A love for sinners means a love that proceeds from the fact that God is love; he loves because it is his nature to love.
And redeemed sinners love because it is their nature to love. Not their old sinful nature, but the result of the “new creation” that takes place when they put their trust in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17). That means a complete transformation….I imagine that this transformation is never one hundred percent in this life. But every real Christian knows that Christ transforms. And the closer we live to God, the more loving we become. We who are Christians love, but not because it has been our good fortune to come across some highly attractive people. We love because we have become loving people ourselves, people who love because we have been loved, not because of the merits of the people we encounter on our way through life. ( By Leon Morris: Expository Reflections on the Gospel of John, 523–524)
