God is Love

Jesus Is Lord
Victory in Jesus
Christ's Love for the Church

1 John 4:7-12

The Message

God Is Love

^7-10 My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God.

^11-12 My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

For Reflection

"How can a God of Love allow such tragedies?"  Many have expressed this feeling following the mass murder of children in Newtown Connecticut.  Indeed, this is a question which is impossible to answer.  I don't know.  All over the world people endure tragedy. It is a human condition.  Sometimes the reasons are clear.  Often times they are not.  One can not explain rationally the irrational.

I do know that God weeps with us and comforts us.  He knows that we can over come grief and out of tragedy will rise an awareness of the Spirit moving among the affected replacing despair with hope and scorn with love.  On the eve of Christ's birth, Herod ordered the murder of children, and yet, the Angels sang of joy for the hope for salvation -- a transformed life to be lived in His kingdom on earth.

Pray

that all people touched by evil and tragedy will be comforted.  Pray for those whose suffering motivates rage and derangement.  Pray for those who commit evil acts and perpetuate injustice.  Pray for the enemies of God.