Psalms 116:1
I love the LORD, for He has heard my voice— my appeal for mercy.
BSB
ASV
I love Jehovah, because he heareth My voice and my supplications.
KJV
I love the Lord, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.
I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer. He did not say, I shall love: but, I have loved. He did not promise that he would do it, but he testifies that he has done it. I have loved. Why have I loved? Because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer. "I have loved" belongs to time that is past; but in "will hear" it belongs to the future. For he did not say, I have loved because the Lord has heard me; but, I have loved because the Lord will hear me.
I love the Lord. A blessed declaration: every believer ought to be able to declare without the slightest hesitation, "I love the Lord." It was required under the law, but was never produced in the heart of man except by the grace of God, and upon gospel principles. It is a great thing to say "I love the Lord"; for the sweetest of all graces and the surest of all evidences of salvation is love.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
1 John 4:19We love because He first loved us.
leads to
And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will remain—so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you.
For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, and enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures—living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that One died for all, therefore all died.
Through
John 16:24Until now you have not asked for anything in My name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.
leads to
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.
You crave what you do not have; you kill and covet, but are unable to obtain it. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask.
I have told you these things so that My joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.