Recently I have heard many politicians reminding people that 'Jesus loves everybody'. Jesus does love everybody. He sacrificed his life for every human being that has ever lived on this planet. With this in mind, we also have to understand of how biblical love is defined by truth. It is not to be misconstrued for the purposes of manipulation and politics. Man is not the author and definer of love.
Jesus spoke the truth in love. Love is inseparable from truth. All one has to do is read the four gospels that record the comings and goings of Jesus, to know that he loved people with the truth. He loved people when he confronted the Pharisees and called them 'whited sepulchers' and told them they were of their father, the devil. He spoke the truth in love to the woman caught in adultery (John 8) when he drove away her accusers and told her then to 'go and sin no more'.
One incident that I love in the gospels is when he walked through the temple throwing over the money-changer tables because they were merchandising God:
12 And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,
13 And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.Matthew 21:12-13
He didn't mince words and his 'zeal' in this record is encouraging. It was a big deal.
Almost on every page of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, there are admonitions and warnings about how to stay out of the proverbial soup. He spoke teaching and guidance not legalism. He knew God's word and he spoke it.
There is no love that is greater than God's love. It is only God's love that satisfies the deepest longings of our hearts.
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