Before we hand over the "Best at Love" trophy to the animal kingdom, we need to pump the brakes a little.

Animals are not running around in some Disney-movie utopia where everyone gets along perfectly: lions kill hyenas; chimpanzees wage brutal territorial wars; male dolphins form gangs; and even cats... well, cats are cats.

But here is what makes animal behavior so fascinating: they operate mostly on instinct and survival programming. When a mother bear protects her cubs, she is not making a moral choice to be loving—she is following deeply embedded biological drives. And things can turn deadly within seconds!

When wolves hunt in packs, they are not practicing teamwork seminars; they are doing what keeps them alive (and you do not want sheep hanging around them, I know the Lord said something like being around them, but you get the point).

So why does it sometimes look like animals have mastered something we humans keep messing up? And truly speaking I keep asking myself this questions once in a while...

Here is where things get really interesting...

We humans were created differently.

...It tells us that God made us "in His own image." That is not just about having opposable thumbs or big brains—it means we have something animals do not possess in the same way: moral consciousness, creative choice, and free will, hallelujah!

We can choose to love—or choose to hate. We can decide to forgive—or hold grudges for decades. We can build bridges or burn them down. This incredible gift of choice is what makes human love so powerful... and human conflict so painful.

Animals do not hate each other in the way humans do...

A lion does not kill a zebra because of ideological differences or past resentments. A crow does not hold a family feud across generations. They act, react, and move on.

But humans? mmmh...we tend to remember, we analyze, nurse wounds, and hold grudges and unforgiveness just to name a few!

We build complex narratives about why someone wronged us. This capacity for deep thought and memory—which allows us to write symphonies and cure diseases—also allows us to hold onto bitterness and division, even in the Body of Christ!

If we had to detail a fraction of those things it will require a whole book to write about the way the wound is so deep to us Christians, despite God's Word is clear to LOVE AND FORGIVE!

The Bible does not sugarcoat this. We jsut can't help ourselves but we are addicted to sugar and sweet stuff, but the Lord Is not playing around with this matter:

The Holy Scriptures reminds, and yes they also warn us, that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

That is not God being harsh; that is just honest reality—something broke in humanity when we chose our way over relationship with God. And turns out that we are still broken even today, despite all those decades of the same message of repentance and grace being read, taught and preached nearly every of our lives!..

Think about it: the very first family in the Bible featured a murder. Cain killed Abel over jealousy (Genesis 4:8). We have been struggling with loving each other well ever since men walked this Earth!

It is not that we are worse than animals(but we behave much worse like more than them, sorry)...we are just playing a completely different game with much higher stakes.

Animals do not wrestle with pride, envy, self-righteousness, or the need to be right...

They do not divide themselves over abstract concepts or inherited prejudices. A dog does not care what political party you support. A dolphin will not judge you for your fashion choices.

No, they don't but believers have really taken it to the extremes (yep, I am talking about Christians not unbelievers here); and being a man of God for so many years I can attest that Christian believers are much worse the the Muslims, Buddhist, Monks, and to shock you, even worse than the ungodly (don't even start by mentioning animals, because if we do not change our ways we will end up being low like animals while we call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ)!

Mankind have turned disagreement into an art form. We have weaponized differences; we have forgotten how to see the image of God in people who think, look, or believe differently than we do.

While you think that is all, you are mistaken...humans have made it a business: they make money out of this abominations and evil behaviors.

...If you want to be popular in this world through the media and social media, you do not have to go far, all you have to do is to act like an animal and you are guaranteed millions of followers and showers of money from the people that comment that your are doing wrong while at the same time they are the one's fueling the machine that you are maintaining and growing for the Devil; to destroy lives, and spread hate and bitterness all over (people really are sick, they need help)! Lord have mercy!

Even though animals are not morally superior, we can learn something from their simplicity:

So are animals better than us?

Not really, actually they never will, no matter what happens or how we behave. They are just different, and even though they are different, we humans are way far better and greater than all of God's creations including even holy Angels of God (Hebrews 1) and fallen-angels.

All thanks to God that He has made us in His own Image and Likeness, glory be to God!

Remember that the goal of this article is not to compare mankind with animals, no, it is to show how we have fallen from love and how cold our hearts have become!

All animals operate on instinct; we operate on choice and will, and that my friend is one of some of the major things that makes all the difference....

The million dollar question is not whether animals are better at love—it is whether we are willing to choose love the way God designed us to, hallelujah!

First Corinthians 13 paints this incredible picture of what real love looks like: patient, kind, not envious or boastful, not easily angered, keeping no record of wrongs.

Notice something? None of those qualities happen automatically. They are all choices. Animals do not need to choose patience—they just react and move forward.

But we have to actively decide not to hold grudges. We have to intentionally choose kindness when someone cuts us off in traffic. We have to work at seeing people as image-bearers rather than obstacles!

📜 The God Factor

Here is the beautiful truth that separates us from the animal kingdom: we were made for relationship with God, and through that relationship, we can actually love in supernatural ways.

Animals can show loyalty and instinctive care, but they cannot demonstrate forgiveness that defies logic. They cannot love their enemies. They cannot lay down their lives for a stranger based on principle and faith. Humans can—when we tap into the Source of love Himself.

Jesus showed us what this looks like when He died for people who hated Him (Romans 5:8). That is not animal behavior. That is divine love working through human choice.

There is something deeply moving about the Apostle John's later writings. This was the same John who once wanted to call down fire on a Samaritan village that rejected Jesus:

This was the "Son of Thunder" who had a temper and an agenda. But after decades of walking with Jesus, watching Him die and rise again, and experiencing the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, John's message became laser-focused on one theme: love one another. In 1 John 4:7-8, he writes:

This was not just good advice from an old preacher. This was a revolutionary declaration: loving each other is not optional for followers of Jesus. It is the very evidence that we actually know God.

You cannot claim to know a God who is love and then live a life characterized by hatred, bitterness, and division. Apostle John kept hammering this point home because he knew how easily we forget. In 1 John 4:20-21:

Apostle John gets even more direct: "If anyone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother."

Ouch! No wiggle room there. Apostle John basically says you cannot love the invisible God while hating the very visible person standing in front of you. It does not work that way. But why was John so obsessed with this message? Because he had learned something profound: love is not just a command—it is the command that fulfills all others.

When you genuinely love your neighbor, you will not steal from them, lie to them, covet their stuff, or harm them. Love covers everything, and all sins...

And here is where it connects back to our animal question: animals do not need to be commanded to care for their pack. It is instinct.

But we need to be reminded, taught, encouraged, and commanded to love each other because our default setting after the fall is self-protection and self-interest.

We need the constant reminder that love is a choice we make every single day. Apostle John also gave us the blueprint in 1 John 3:16-18:

In other words: stop just talking about love. Stop posting about it. Stop theorizing about it. Actually DO it. Feed someone who is hungry. Help someone who is struggling. Sacrifice your comfort for someone else's need. That is what love looks like in action, not just in emotion.

The beauty of John's message is that he was not asking us to do something impossible on our own strength. He kept pointing back to the source: we love because God first loved us. We have been shown what love looks like through Jesus.

Now we get to reflect that same love to a world desperately hungry for it—including to each other, especially to each other. Glory be to God!

For churches and individual believers today, this is a powerful invitation to self-examination and sincere repentance. It is a call to move beyond spiritual indifference, bitterness, hate and all evil forms; unto the love of God and love one another!