This love is a feeling and like the rest of our feelings it comes and goes. Kind of hard to walk in love when it is a feeling so what is John talking about here. This requires digging deeper into the meaning of several key words to understand the verse better.
The first word is walk. The Greek word for walk here is peripateo; it means - to tread all around, walk at large, to live, deport oneself, follow as a companion, be occupied with, and walk about. When I look at the first part of the definition, instantly I think of The Walking Dead zombies and how they just walk around at large no real bearing in life. Then the second part makes me think of Dr. Who, or his companion more so, following him around, trying to learn from him what they can, totally focused on what he does, even try to be like him. Yet when you combine them you get a glimpse of what we are to do. As we walk through this life we are to follow, be occupied with, and becoming like God.
The second word is the word that tells us what it is about God that we need to be occupied with. The word for love is agape which means – affection, benevolence, love feast, charity, and dear. This is the love that God has shown to us. The best description of this love is found in Ephesians 1:3-6; " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved." Before we were ever born He loved us, knowing what sins we would commit He still loved us enough to have His Son pay the price to redeem us from those sins. He has adopted us as His sons, and daughters.
When we put this together here is how it looks. We are to be like zombies as we walk through this world, in that we are to be dead to the hurts that others may inflict on us in order to extend to them the love that we are to be occupied with as a follower of Jesus. The only way we can do that is to be His companion and focused on Him so that we actually become like Him in our thoughts and actions.