Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8 NIV)
This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:9-10 NIV)
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18 NIV)
We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 John 4:19-21 NIV)
God is love. Friends, I have never seen a love like this before! God has unrelenting love for us!
So what does God being love have to do with us?
Well, since He is love, we can only truly know what love is when we look at Him.
God gives us the perfect definition of love.
His love doesn’t have levels. His love isn’t based on what we can do for Him.
He never holds back His love. He loves us unconditionally.
God shows us in many ways what His love looks like.
He gave His only Son so that we might live.
He chooses us all. He wants all of us.
We don’t have to work to gain His love. We already have it!
He isn’t judging us. He isn’t waiting for us to make mistakes. He is never disappointed.
He knew what He was getting into, and He chose us anyway.
God tells us that if we love Him, we must also love our brothers and sisters.
God wants us to love others around us. He wants us to love all of His children, even the ones that have yet to come to know Him and love Him.
Again I say, I have never seen a love like this!
Our God sees all of the mistakes in our lives, but He loves us anyway. He even goes further to say that He forgives and forgets them all. He doesn’t hold our past against us! He doesn’t even remember it.
Since God is love, it only makes sense that we should look at His definition of love. We need to look at how God loves us and, in turn, love others around us in the same way.
What if people sin against you? You forgive and forget. You don’t hold their past against them. What if people make mistakes? You love them anyway.
“To me this is like the days of Noah, when I swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth. So now I have sworn not to be angry with you, never to rebuke you again. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the LORD, who has compassion on you. (Isaiah 54:9-10 NIV)
I pray that you would seek after God and find out what love really is and means. I pray that you would start loving everyone around you in a God kind of way. I pray that as you start to understand what God’s love really means, it will set you free!
Love, Kathleen 🙂
So what does God being love have to do with us?
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