4 Biblical Rules You Must Follow If You Want to Find True Love

1 John 4:7-8

Here are 4 biblical rules you must follow if you want to find true love with someone.

1. Always Put God First in Your Heart Before You Try to Love Someone Else

One of the main differences between real love as explained in the Bible compared to a worldly love romanticized in movies and novels is that true love originates in the giver of that love and not in the object of that love.

In other words, the world thinks that to find true love, you must find someone who makes you want to love them fully. They think they will be able to have an immense amount of love to give once they find someone who inspires them enough to love that much. This is wrong.

Yes, you do need to find the right person to love in that romantic way. But even then, true love must already be in your heart to give. If you only love someone when they seem lovable, your love will always fail eventually.

God doesn’t love us because we are lovable. God loves us because God is love. Likewise, the love you give to someone else needs to ultimately be love that flows from the eternal well of love – God himself. 1 John 4:7-8 states, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

If God is not first in your heart, not only will you miss out on God, which is who we need most, but you also will lack true love to give to this other person God has for you. As Jesus said, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

2. Never Partner Up with Someone Who Puts You Above Their Own Walk with God

Everything we just said in Rule 1 applies to this other person’s relationship with you. Even though it may feel good at first for someone to put you first in their heart, eventually this person will lose love for you if they are not rightly connected to God.

We all will make mistakes. So if this person’s love is primarily rooted in their false belief that you are the perfect person they’ve been looking for, you will disappoint them sooner or later.

If someone does not put God first in their life, even if they are putting you first in their life, don’t date them and certainly don’t marry them. The only love that will last is the love that flows from the heart of God.

As 1 John 4:11-12 states, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”

3. Always Follow God’s Precepts If You Want God’s Promises

It’s popular to preach about the promises of God. It’s less popular to preach about the precepts that are always attached to God’s promises. For example, James 1:25 states, “But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” We all want to be blessed by God in what we do, but this verse states we will only be blessed if we are doers of the law and not hearers only.

Yes, God makes many beautiful and true promises in the Scriptures. But if we want those promises, we also have to do what comes before and after those promises in Scripture. Therefore, if you want a true love relationship, then you must truly follow God’s laws which lead to a loving relationship (Ephesians 5:22-33, 1 Peter 3:1-7, Colossians 3:18-19, Etc.). 

4. Never Use Your Own Definition of Love. Always Use God’s Definition of Love

“Love is love” says the world. The Bible, however, says sin is sin and love is what God has told us what love is. Isaiah 5:20, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

At times, true love will come through gentleness. At other times, true love will come through discipline. At times, your love will require you to forgive. And at other times, your love will require you to ask for forgiveness. If we define love as whatever we feel like, we will not experience true love.

If you want a true, biblical love, you must always use the definition of love as given in the Scriptures, not in the world.

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