This is how we know what love is

That Christ died for us. I have been reading so much about love. Works of Love, as a matter of fact, and it really made me search deep within myself- how I love, how I am loved, what love really is and really needs to be. How love is our duty, to God (from God) and to people. What love really entails... love is deep.
It's true that it is so easy to love those who we want to love, those who we think are lovable--but what about those that aren't? Jesus didn't say to love only the people we want to love, the people we naturally care about; if that was so, love would not be a command. But real love loves deeply. It loves in spite of flaws, in spite of distinction, in spite of weakness and pain and annoyance and disability. Perfect love, it seems, loves and doesn't feel pain- perfect love is that love that lasts forever and is equal between two people, etc etc. I don't think that's what love is. I think perfect love is the love that Jesus shows to us- despite how undeserving we are, how flawed and far from perfect we are, how far we turn from him and how selfish we are, despite how we don't love him back even at all sometimes, despite time and sin and fault and how hurtful we can be to each other--and God, for he feels that--but His love endures. It endures so deeply that it was carried through torture, ridiculing and pain, all the way to DEATH. I cannot ever even begin to imagine a love greater--having suffered so much, sacrificed everything, and carried out to the end and again with new life- and we don't deserve it even a little bit. That doesn't change how much Jesus loves us, how much he had each one of us in mind while he was on that cross. We know what love really means because Jesus showed us, and he is still showing us. When a person, when GOD even loves us so deeply that he dies for us in our imperfection, how on earth can we be so selfish as to look at another with hate, with envy, with selfishness in thinking we don't get something back from the love we give to another. Why is it that we're so focused on how people make us feel, instead of freely giving and pouring into others. It's not about us.... it's not about if a person makes us happy, if they're smart or pretty or cool or entertaining enough to earn our love. We have never earned love- so instead of wanting something, why don't we just give?
I can't help but wonder what the world would be like if people opened their hearts to everyone, if people looked more deeply than the surface to the heart. Even then it's not about the heart. We are to love our enemies, even when they hate us. Our enemies are still people, they are still "our neighbors"- those around us that Jesus put for us to love. Instead we are so filled with selfishness and hate... we can't get beyond our own selfish desires and need for personal satisfaction. If everyone loved everyone the world wouldn't be what it is... I wonder if love would even be the same... if it would still seem special... but that is our command. You're probably thinking "That's naive". It shouldn't have to be some naive concept. Christianity and God's command to us is not naive. So much of it is distorted and reshaped into what we want things to mean that we view the world as God intended it to be as some naive daydream of sorts. Love.... we need to focus on what it really means, what we really receive, and refocus our eyes and our hearts not on our selves but first on God and all these things will make a lot more sense. When we love God, we have to love people. We cannot love God without loving people, and when we love people we love God, for God loves people. I think the question in the end is how are we really loving God.... and what really matters deep inside all of us.