Today’s Verse
“He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.“
1 John 4:8 (WEB)
Love Itself
I’ve heard it said that God loves me. I’ve read verses about His love. I’ve sung songs about being loved by God. But there’s a difference between saying God loves me and understanding that God IS love. Not just that He demonstrates love or shows love, but that love is the very essence of who He is.
Jamie, a commenter on one of my facebook posts put it well yesterday:
John writes it plainly: “God is love.” Not “God is loving.” Not “God has love.” God IS love. It’s His nature. His character. The foundation of everything He does. Which means He cannot act outside of love, cannot be unloving, cannot do anything that isn’t motivated by and filtered through love.
This matters especially in the hard moments. When the medical news is bad. When the money isn’t stretching. When you’re caring for someone who’s slipping away. When you’re in pain that won’t ease. When you’re so tired you can barely function and wondering where God is in all of it. Because if God IS love, not just loving but love itself, then even in this, even in what feels unbearable, His heart toward me is love. I don’t always understand why He allows what He allows. But if His nature is love, then His presence with me in the pain, His purposes through it, His response to me in it, all of it flows from that nature.
I don’t always recognize it as love. Sometimes His love looks like discipline. Sometimes it looks like silence. Sometimes it looks like closing doors I wanted to walk through. But if His nature is love, then His actions toward me, even the ones that confuse me, are expressions of that nature.
This gives me something solid to stand on when circumstances shake my confidence. I might not understand what God is doing. I might not feel loved in the moment. But His love isn’t contingent on my feelings or my understanding. It’s rooted in who He is. And who He is doesn’t change.
Today, I’m resting in this: God is love. Not was. Not will be. Is. And everything He does toward me flows from that reality.
Today’s Prayer
Lord, You are love, not just loving but love itself, the very essence of who You are, the foundation of everything You do.
When I don’t understand Your ways or question Your decisions, I need to remember that love isn’t just something You show but who You fundamentally are.
Teach me that because You are love, everything that comes from You is filtered through love, every action motivated by love, every plan designed in love.
You can’t act outside of Your nature, which means You cannot be unloving, cannot withhold love, cannot treat me with anything but love even when I don’t recognize it.
Help me interpret my circumstances through the lens of Your nature, to trust that if God is love, then even what feels hard or confusing must somehow be love working.
Remind me that being loved by the God who IS love means I’m loved with a perfect, unchanging, unconditional love that will never fail or run out.
Give me security in knowing that love isn’t just what You feel about me but what You are, making Your love toward me as certain as Your existence.
Let this truth settle deep in my soul today, that God is love, and everything He does flows from that reality, including how He loves me.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
Art print
If you’re interested in purchasing a wall art print of this piece you can find out more on my online store here. It’s available as an 8×10″ print on Hahnemuhle German Etching Paper.