God is Love
Image by Karen .t from Pixabay - a fellow Christian artist
For the summer, I am pulling posts from a pre-Substack blog which will lead us on a path to understanding who God really is. We’ll be starting with love. We should not look at this as an attribute of God because He IS love. There is no understanding of what love is without knowing God. I had no idea what it truly meant to love until I accepted Jesus and learned how to have a relationship with him. This should make you stop and really think about who you think God is like it did for me.
The following was written nearly a decade ago. It still stands as truth today, and even the general reference to what was going on at the time feels like today’s news.
There is a solid reason why Paul listed love first in his list in Galatians 5:22-23. This fruit of the Spirit is a must have in order to have all the others.
1 John 4:8
He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
This is a verse we can dig deep into. A quick realization is that if we are not loving those around us, we will never show that we know God. We are quick to blame others for our life going wrong or not making us happy. We show a great deal of impatience when we have to wait in line, get behind a slow driver, or have to stay on hold more than a couple minutes. The news shows us destroying things, shouting angry words, and hurting each other because of circumstances we dislike. Where did love go? Hate for anything different feels like a norm.
Go a little deeper and we can add if we are not accepting and loving ourselves the way we were made, we don’t know God. Our culture has set molds that we should fit in. It has even bent over backwards to allow freedom of choice without realizing the harm some freedoms are causing. It takes courage to be yourself in the face of all this noise. Too many of us have anxiety disorders, fears, and unachievable expectations due to what the world is telling us. Which way are we to go to be happy with ourselves?
Now let’s hit the part of this verse that should spark an explosion. God is love. It is not some side attribute of his. He IS love. We cannot know love without God since he is love. So many see him as the angry God that will rain down wrath upon us because of our actions. We deserve that wrath for our sins, but God never gives up on us. He never stops trying to get our attention and helping us find the truth. He gave us a way out through Jesus because he so loved the world (John 3:16). We cannot fathom the depths of his love, but are we wading in to learn more? Learning to love unconditionally should be a primary goal for all Christians.
Let’s dig into a few other verses about what love can do and how it should prompt us to react to those around us.
Proverbs 10:12
Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins.
1 Peter 4:8
And above all things have fervent love for one another, for love will cover a multitude of sins.
Love can cover and endure a lot. However, just because we know someone loves us does not mean we should test that love by not loving back. If we keep doing things without regard to others, we are causing strife. At some point, there has to be a breaking point. Even God says there will be an end to this age because he must show justice and punish the evil.
He hasn’t brought that end because he wants all those he has called and will call before then to come into his family. Just like he made sure Noah had everything that needed to survive the flood before he shut them inside, he is going to make sure all who will come to him are locked in with Jesus. Though he is love, those that will not accept him and his rules will be punished. He is a just God. When we feel a tug to stop going the way we are, it is God trying to get our attention because of his love. He does not want to see us hurt anymore than a good parent wants to see their child do something that could harm them.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.
This is what true love looks like. It’s the fruit that helps with all the others because of what it can do. As we take time to soak up and understand God’s love for us, we can show it to the world.
We can start by being sure of our position with God and acting like we belong there. The world will know the followers of Christ by their love for one another. The world knows us by our actions. Are we showing God’s love as described in His Word?