God is Love
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. 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. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 1 John 4:7-12
The command we hear in Galatians 5:14 sums up the entire law “Love your neighbor as yourself”. In this passage we get a bit more insight into the command. Love is an action in which we show God by our love for one another. Seemingly an easy statement to accept, right? But truthfully it can be difficult to do.
Love is most often reflected or expressed as feelings. We love our favorite sports teams, we love music, we love certain foods, etc., but love is actually a choice and an action; a choice and an action taken by God our Creator. Verse 8 says God is love. Love is part of God’s nature. Like the sun is synonymous with light, love is synonymous with God. We cannot separate it from who He is.
God’s great expression of love comes through His sacrifice of His only Son so that we are restored in our relationship with Him. By this we are free to express God’s love for creation and for one another. In Greek, this expression of love is termed, Agape. That is to say God is love; undeserved, gracious, and sacrificial.
On my own, this form of love is really not possible for me to express, but by drawing closer to God through prayer, worship and study of the scriptures, I can be open to understand more fully what real love means. Only through Him can we show and experience love.
Father God, Your perfect love makes us righteous through Christ. Help me daily to shun anything in my life that stands in the way of Your love and my ability to allow others to see Your love through my actions. In Jesus’ precious name I pray. Amen.