God is Love

Title: God is Love

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

God is love, when we understand that love is from God and that God is love, love makes more sense and becomes more real to us. God’s love is initiating love. It does not wait for people to come asking for love and acceptance. God makes the first move, loving before people ask for love or even acknowledge their need for it. Long before we seek and turn to God, God seeks us out and turns to us.(Luke 19:10)

God’s love is renewing love. It forgives and accepts us as we are, no matter what we may have done or not done. Be mindful that it is not a sentimental love that allows us passively to settle down in our sinfulness with the complacent attitude that God will forgive; that’s what he’s there for. It is love that sets us on our feet and sets us on the way toward becoming strong, active, responsible people growing up into the mature humanity we see in Jesus Christ.(Eph. 4:13)

God’s love is faithful. God never takes back His promise to love us. Even when we are faithless, God remains faithful and true. We may turn away from God, but God never turns away from us. Even when God judges us for our sinfulness, God still loves us, for God’s love is “everlasting” (Jer. 31:3).

God’s love is unconditional. God does not say, “I will love you if you prove that you deserve my love and are worthy of it.” Christ died for the ungodly, the zealots, the tax collector, the immoral, the social outcast and for you and I. There is no strings attached, to God’s love.

Love comes from God and God alone. The corruption that we see in the world is a direct result of sin destroying the love that we seek. Like all things, sin and the evil one have taken what God has created and made it illegitimate. Hence it is not Love but Lust.

[pullquote] Love is important to us because it is hardwired into our being. We were all created in God’s image, therefore we were created in the image of love [/pullquote]

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16

The following are points I want us remember:

Love is the foundation of all relationship.
God’s Love is Unconditional
There is nothing we can do to earn God’s love
Love is the standard for all Christian

An expert in the Law asked Jesus in Matthew 22:36, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” That’s incredible if you think about it. The entire Law of the Old Testament– Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy– all of the codes of holiness and behavior can be summed up with two commands: Love God and love your neighbor. He is unconditional love. He saw our need and met it with His love.

Prayer Points