Yes, Christian are called to pursue that strength and level of sacrificial of love, but rarely achieve it. They rarely achieve it even in their best remote moments, but we are still called to pursue it.

Sometimes a husband’s love for his wife can lead him to sacrifice himself for her. That’s close, but learning to love as Christ loved is the highest calling to which a human can aspire.

Whoa, this is a loaded question for an athiest. I shouldn’t even answer it, but I thought you might like to see another point of view. Of course “imagined” love is more perfect and powerful than the real thing, where differences in personality come into play. Just ask any teenage girl who has been in love with a celebrity.

How do you measure love?

It’s loaded kind of like how “God Bless America” is loaded. An atheist would consider this an invalid statement (question? command?). It’s actually a little coercive. Agree with it and you acknowledge god (which an atheist doesn’t); So that leaves disagreeing with it, which sounds unpatriotic, or rendering the statement invalid.

@city_data_forum I agree. They should change it to “may fate smile favorably upon America” or something. Of course, that is what I have always interpreted the phrase “god bless America” to mean anyway.

Whena Christian allows Christs love to work in them they can.

Romantic love by nature is selfish, and conditional with strings attached.

Metta, or loving-kindness, the kind of love that Christians see as offered by God is whole, pure, and unconditional, and extends to all sentient beings.

The act of making an exception is self defeating.

to put @sinscriven‘s point another way it is agape love that Christ/God has for us, and mere eros (physical) or phileo (brotherly) love that we share with other people. It is by definition impossible for us to love other people in the same way Christ loves us. We become too personally involved.

@GracieT

Eros is not an issue for God or Christ, but definitely is for us. I tend to see agape and eros as being necessary elements to wholeness.