Do You Truly Believe God Is Love and That He Loves You?
It is written in the Bible that “God is Love” (1 John 4:8). Of course, most of us have heard this at some point in our lives, whether from our parents, an article like this one, or even just read it somewhere on the back of a bumper sticker. There is even a popular song that most people would easily recognize “Jesus loves me this I know, for The Bible tells me so.” Regardless of how you heard it, you’ve most likely heard it, probably more than once. I want to talk about how weighty that phrase really is. It does appear to be a little overused on coffee mugs and inspirational canvases. God is love.
Maybe we have forgotten the importance of the deep hope it carries for us all.
So what exactly is love? According to scripture, I guess it would be wise to start with the definition of love since that is what God is. God is love. I’m not talking about Nicholas Sparks novels or romantic movies filled with dramatic highs and lows to prove sincere feelings. According to the dictionary, love is “an intense feeling of deep affection.” The word love is synonymous with “deep affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, intimacy, attachment, and endearment.”
- Love Defined: An intense feeling of deep affection. (“babies fill parents with intense feelings of love”)
- Synonyms: deep affection, fondness, tenderness, warmth, intimacy, attachment, endearment
God is synonymous with every word in the box because He is all-encompassing and the very word “LOVE” itself is Him.
This is still hard for me to wrap my mind around, although I believe it to be true.
But do you really know that Jesus loves you? I have struggled with this many times throughout my life. Trying to grasp and understand the amount of love God has for me, a frail, sinful human being. It is so hard to understand the love God has for us because our love for him is so small in comparison. Our love is conditional. Whether we mean for it to be or not, it is.We love based on security and comfort and whether or not our wants, needs, and desires are fulfilled. God loves us despite what we do to him. Most of the time, our love is based on what others do to us or what they can do for us. God is love.
Related Post: Don't Debate Love
God is the complete opposite.
And He loves you today, exactly where you are, regardless of who you are or what you’ve done. I am continuously grateful for that. That fact alone is worth meditating on and worth exploring.My encouragement to anyone out there at this moment is to love intentionally. Do your very best too.