God is Love

1 John 4:8 NIV

"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."

The Beatles said all we need is love.  Whitney Houston sang that she would always love you.  Even the hair bands of the eighties were encouraged to include love ballads on their records.  Love is one choice that transcends time, culture, and faith.  When all is said and done, the only thing that will remain is love.

Love is important because God is love. Notice that I am not saying love is god - it doesn't work that way.  The hippie camps proved love is not god because all their relationships ended in jealousy or empty relationships.  Love has to have a standard or measure.  God is.

People have tried so many formulas for love lately that true love is becoming harder to identify.  Broken homes, broken relationships, and broken people have so convoluted the picture of love that many people are beginning to think that love has to hurt. But God is love.

Jesus came to show us how God loves.  The first people to experience this were the outcasts of society - the sheherds.  As he grew He taught priests in the Temple.  Christ saw a lame man and went up to heal him.  Jesus saw lepers and approached them because no one else would.  Jesus touched the blind and sat with the poor.  He mingled with those unworthy of the presence of a king.  Jesus showed patience,  compassion, passion, and so much more.  He taught those who drew near. 

In the end, He refused to place blame as His accusers accussed, as the governor demanded an answer, as the soldiers beat Him, as the crowd ridiculed and mocked Him, as people spit on Him, as the nails were driven into His flesh,  and as He suffocated on the cross.  With His last breath He ask for all to be forgiven and made sure His mother was cared for.  God is love.

If you do not know this love, then you do not know God.  If your argument is that there is no God, then you have never truly experienced His love and cannot with assurance say He doesn't exist. 

The love of God is unfailing and always the best place to turn when others choose not to love.  Jesus loves even when others abuse love's trust.  Jesus loves even when others choose to abuse children, spouses, and family.  Jesus loves even when others choose to kill, steal, and destroy.  Jesus loves even when others choose to blame Him and deny Him and hate Him.

God is love and wants us to know what it really looks like.  God disciplines in love so love can be seen - so that love becomes the choice of mankind.  Jesus is the reason for the season because He embodies true love and still shows it to anyone who will believe.  Love is patient, kind, long-suffering, and so much more (1 Corinthians 12).  God is love.

I personally cannot follow the examples of love of anyone who has never experienced God's true love.  Why should you? 

I challenge anyone who does not believe in, or trust, God to spend one month asking God to show if He is real while reading just one book of the Bible - the book of John.

I also challenge those who say they are Christians to spend one month praying for one opportunity everyday to show God's love - outside of church (you should already be reading God's Word on a regular basis).