He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
1 John 4:8
God is love. Think about it. I could go on and on about it. Such a simple, almost obvious concept but so wonderful. If you place emphasis on each word separately you have a lot to think about.
God is love// The Father, Son and the Holy Spirit are love. Jesus is love. Not sex, not money or shiney things or even kindness because that too can be done in selfishness. Everything apart from God is loveless and, though I shudder thinking about it, its all done in selfishness. Christ is love. This adds so much more meaning to Proverbs 10:12 "Love covers all sin."
When Christ died for our sins, He was the embodiment of love because He was the embodiment of God. When we going through life all of us seek for love and we try to find it in so many different places. God talks in the bible about being a jealous God. I can hear Him saying, "Why are you going there for love? Why are you searching for love where it is not? I am love! Here in My arms is where you will be truly loved."
God is love// The word 'is' should have an alternate, stronger and more meaningful version. For someone or something to be someone or something is meaningful.
In this world love is thrown around like any other word. Everyone wants it and we all sing 'what is love?' and people fall in and out of it. We love food, love mom, love the weather we're having and feel love. Now sure, love can be felt and you can love all those things but also like we sing its 'more than a feeling.' Love is more than a feeling, more than an action or commitment or sacrifice, love is a Being.
There was a time when I thought that total and complete anguish was the strongest feeling anyone could feel. I wasn't Gothic, (though I do love you goths out there!) but I wore black a good bit because it's an honest color, a sign of brokenness. Brokenness has it's place and it can be good but you can't stay broken forever. There is something that is stronger than hurt, hate, joy, longing, sex, anguish or anything of this world and that is love. Becaue
God is love// Throughout the Bible God is called a lot of things, all of them are true and praise worthy but this one is my favorite for now. In the context, John is saying that to know God is to love. This is amazing. For me this adds a lot of meaning and purpose to my quiet times. I have always put loving others before knowing God but in 1 John 4:7 John says that we should love others because "he who loves is born of God and knows God." So if you spend time with the Lord, if you worship Him in the quiet of your heart, study His truths and draw close to Him you will find yourself loving others. If God is in you and you seek Him out you really have no other choice!
With this knowledge comes also the understanding of the sad fact that apart from God is nothing lovely, it is all prideful and selfish. Every action, thought and belief of the lost can be torn down and you're left with nothing to offer God, nothing worthy. We're all to be tested by fire and everything that does not know God is to be cast away.
Now like I've been talking about: God is love. Pray for the lost, go and find them, show them God and His perfect love. Love its self came to us and died for us so that we could know and love Him all the more. My beloved, if God loved us enough to send His Son to die for us, we ought to love one another.
Some links I thought of while copying this from my notebook:
If you're want to know more about experiencing God's love, here's a great video.
A song for the searching.
And another song.
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