“God is Love”
- Mar 6
- 5 min read
When was the last time you heard God’s ‘I love YOU?’
Hear it again this morning - “Since you are precious and honoured in my sight, and because I love you” (Is 43:5).
God’s love is not an idea; it is an unwavering reality. It is steadfast (Ps 136), everlasting (Jer 31:3), immeasurable (Eph 3:18), and inseparable (Rom 8:38–39).
Henri Nouwen once said, “I am convinced that I will truly be able to love the world when I fully believe that I am loved far beyond its boundaries."
Stop for a moment and let it sink in.
John’s twice-repeated statement, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8,16), is one of the most tremendous statements in the Bible.
J Packer’s definition of God’s love is: “God’s love is an exercise of his goodness toward individual sinners whereby, having identified himself with their welfare, he has given his Son to be their Saviour, and now brings them to know and enjoy him in a covenant relation.”
“God is love” means that his love finds expression in everything that He says and does.
God’s essential nature is love. It’s more than ‘God loves’. He does love, but that loving comes out of His Being. It represents the essence of God's nature, using ‘agape’ to represent a selfless, sacrificial, generous, giving love that He gives to each one of us.
He loves you more than you can ever grasp and it’s a love that changes everything. Love does that! It’s also a wonderful reminder that God’s love is greater than any of our rebellion
towards Him.
How deep the Father's love for us? How vast beyond all measure?
That He should give His only Son, To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss? The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One, Bring many sons to glory.
God’s love from the start
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:4-6).
John Stott said, "It cannot be emphasised too strongly that God’s love is the source, not the consequence, of the atonement... God does not love us because Christ died for us; Christ died for us because God loved us. God took the initiative and loves us even if we do not or may not love Him in return."
God’s love is… A first love
"We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).
This is important because it means that God's love wasn't a reactionary love; God's love acted first. He does not love us as a response, but as a choice. It’s an instinctual and uncontrollable love. God can’t do anything else but love us unconditionally and wholeheartedly. Isn’t that an amazing thought?
Henri Nouwen writes: “What can we say about God’s love? We can say that God’s love is unconditional. God does not say, “I love you, if…” There are no ifs in God’s heart. God’s love for us does not depend on what we do or say, on our looks or intelligence, on our success or popularity. God’s love for us existed before we were born and will exist after we have died. God’s love is from eternity to eternity.”
The love that God has for each of us is free, spontaneous, uncaused and uninfluenced. “God wasn’t attracted to you and didn’t choose you because you were big and important; the fact is, there was almost nothing to you. He did it out of sheer love” (Deut 7:7-8, Message Bible).
So, can I ask, is God your ‘first love?’ Just check to see. You’ll know if your love for the Lord is no longer as great as a love for someone or something else. Or, you'll know when you don’t long for times of fellowship with God in His Word, in prayer or with His people, when you don’t love others as you should and fail to treat them as sisters and brothers in Christ. This is especially true when it comes to forgiveness!
God’s love can be known and relied on
"If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us" (1 John 4:15ff).
It's a love freely given, lovingly given, graciously given to all of us. Do you know, we can "know and rely" on God’s love today, which is ‘enough’?
God’s agape love never fails, never runs out and never gives up. I’m so pleased about that, aren’t you?
We said last week, we can and ought to grasp such love. Remember, it’s saying we "may have full strength," "be fully able," or "have power to". It signifies a divinely enabled capacity for believers to comprehend and know the profound and awesome dimensions of God's love.
It’s a love that sets us apart, becoming the litmus test for us as Christians.
The Message Bible puts it like this,“You’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God” (Eph 3:18).
A love that knows no separation
John Owen said, "We are never nearer Christ than when we find ourselves lost in a holy amazement at his unspeakable love."
Romans 8:38-39 says, “Nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
A.W. Tozer reassures us, “Because God is self-existent, His love had no beginning. Because He is eternal, His love can have no end. Because He is infinite, it has no limit. Because He is immense, His love is incomprehensively vast, bottomless, shoreless, an eternal ocean.”
The love of God fits
God's love fits even in broken and messed up lives. Where are we in our relationship with Jesus – love him a little, long to love him more?
"God is love" (1 John 4:8). It is not simply that God 'loves,' but that He is Love itself. Love is not merely one of His attributes, but His very nature.
F.B. Meyer once said, “The length of God's love had no date of origin, and shall have none of conclusion. God is Love, it continues ever, indissoluble, unchangeable, a perpetual present tense.”
"God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us" (Rom 5:5).
God’s love is not rationed drop by drop, but is from an unlimited divine supply.
The love of God has been "poured out" into each of our hearts. Whilst this points to a past, completed event, it remains and continues today to be a lavish outpouring to the point of overflowing.
Do you know this and are you experiencing it right now?
John 3:16: “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.”
I love what someone has written about this text…
“For God”…The greatest Lover
“So loved”…The greatest degree
“The world”…The greatest number
“That He gave”…The greatest act
“His only begotten Son”…The greatest gift
“That whosoever”…The greatest invitation
“Believes”…The greatest simplicity
“In Him”…The greatest Person
“Shall not perish”…The greatest deliverance
“But”….The greatest difference
“Have”….The greatest certainty
“Eternal Life”…The greatest possession
We have a God who loves us beyond measure, without conditions, and without change.
And it’s only in loving Him and longing to know Him better, that love become a life-changing reality.
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