God Is Love
We have all seen the bumper stickers, the t-shirts, and other paraphernalia with the words, “God is Love!” written on them. Because of that, it can sound so cliché and familiar to us when, in fact, it should really make us stand up and take notice. Truly God is loving! God’s very essence is love and this concept is crucial to understanding who God is.
In 1 John 4:16 it says, “So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”
Shortly after that verse comes 1 John 4:19 where it tells us, “We love because he first loved us.”
God loved us first. He created us for His love. God wants us to be a part of His family.
In the Book of Genesis, we see the account of creation, which, in itself, was an act of love. We see in Genesis 1 how God created the earth and everything in it – day, night, sun, moon, and stars, water, land, plants, animals, and He topped it off with the creation of Adam and Eve. We see God’s tremendous love and care as He provided a beautiful home (Eden) for the humans and provided humans to take care of the earth and all its creatures.
Genesis 1:26 says, “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
God’s love is also demonstrated after Adam and Eve rebelled against God. God’s physical and spiritual provision continued – He provided them with furs from animals with which to clothe themselves and God prophesied the coming of The Messiah within the curse he pronounced upon the deceiving serpent.
In God’s omniscience, He knew that the serpent would succeed in deceiving Eve, and Adam, and that all of humankind would need a perfect sacrifice so that the humans could be “born again” into His eternal family. In essence, we see that God had incredible Provision planned out before Adam and Eve were even created. What incredible love!
In Genesis 3:15 we see God’s foretelling of the birth of Jesus and how He would crush Satan’s head after Satan succeeds in striking Him on the heel (Jesus’ sacrificial death). “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” And so we see that God’s love persisted, even after the tragic fall of humankind.
God’s love is everlasting. In Jeremiah 31:3 it says, “The Lord appeared to him from far away. I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.”
Psalm 86:15 tells us God’s love is steadfast and faithful. “But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”
And Zephaniah 3:17 tells us, “The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.”
The biggest evidence of God’s love is His Son, Jesus Christ, who took on human form to become the perfect (sinless) sacrifice to make it possible for you and for me to be redeemed into God’s Family.
John 3:16-18 tells us how we can escape God’s judgment: ““For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
We can count on the Truth that God is loving and that He loves us so very much. Whenever you are struggling with any doubt, come back to this Truth and remember the life, ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He experienced every human temptation and remained sinless and was willing to die on a torturous Roman cross as the once and for all sacrifice for our sins.
Call upon Jesus today. Believe upon Him and what He did for you on the cross and you will be born again into the Family of God for eternity.