God Is Love

God is love.

What a simple, yet profound statement. Hey, don’t take my word for it. I didn’t make this up. I’m not kidding. John did AND, if you want to get all churchy, GOD did (since he inspired John to write it).

Here, read “John’s” words:

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
1 John 4:8 NIV

This verse is what inspired the idea for our current series, “For the Love of Pete.” I read it. And then I read it again. And I quite possibly read it again, but that seems a bit redundant. I started thinking about love. What is it? Where is it? How can I find it? Who gives it? I started thinking about past relationships and how much I love stuff and money and I realized something profound (or at least it seemed that way at the time): my definition of LOVE is messed up!

So, I asked, “What is love?” This took me to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8. Different author, well, sorta, God inspired Paul too. In it Paul describes what love IS and what is NOT. From this block of text I pulled out 2 principles, 2 ideas, and you can read about them here…

#1 Love Isn’t Easy

#2 Love Raises The Bar

But I kept coming back to 1 John 4:8. God is love. So, I set out to define love, not as a relationship, not as a thing, not as financial security… I set out to define love as GOD. God IS love. At the root of many of my struggles growing up was this idea that love was something ELSE, that I could find it in a RELATIONSHIP or in a THING… NO! God is love.

There was a God-sized hole inside me that I was trying to fill on my own, but I kept coming up EMPTY! Satisfied for a moment and left searching and struggling for more (kinda sounds like an addiction? Hmm… interesting). This is the significance of God offering up His son Jesus, of offering up HIMSELF on the cross. Jesus IS God’s LOVE and GRACE and MERCY and FORGIVENESS and GLORY all wrapped up into one. Jesus fills that hole.

God is love.
Do you know God?
Do you know love?
You can’t know one without the other.
They are synonymous. 
Love is not a WHAT, love is a WHO.
Stop chasing after stuff and start chasing after the Savior.
God LOVES you and Jesus is the PROOF!

God is love.

Reflect:

• If God is love and you don’t know God is it possible to love?
• What’s the significance of the statement, “God is love”?
• How has your definition of love differed from God’s?
• If you’ve spent your whole life searching for love you’ve really been searching for God. What’s holding you back from meeting Him?