God is Love

Toward a New Creation
Life on God's Terms

Death Becomes Life

1 John 4:7-16  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!
^13-16 This is how we know we’re living steadily and deeply in him, and he in us: He’s given us life from his life, from his very own Spirit. Also, we’ve seen for ourselves and continue to state openly that the Father sent his Son as Savior of the world. Everyone who confesses that Jesus is God’s Son participates continuously in an intimate relationship with God. We know it so well, we’ve embraced it heart and soul, this love that comes from God.

For Reflection

God is love!  The phrase is more than a slogan or a trite answer to explain God.  We are created with the capacity to love.  Because of the Christ event, we know the love of God and we know the powerful threat that love is to all who choose selfishness over selflessness.  This unreasonable, powerful, active love comes from God and resides in you.

Pray

that you will let the love that resides in you govern your every thought and deed.