"For God So Loved..." - 2/21/08

1 John 4:16, "God is love."

God is love, but what does that mean in a culture where the word "love" has been so trivialized? We say we love our spouses and children and God himself, but we also love coffee, watching TV, basking in the sun, and playing Guitar Hero. That is not God.

So let us ask, what does the Bible say that love is? It's so cool! Look at the classic wedding scripture about love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-13, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails...these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

So then, if God is love, then the two words should be interchangeable when the word "love" is used properly. Look what this scripture says about who God is when you do that:

• God is patient
• God is kind
• God does not envy
• God does not boast
• God is not proud - Pride is a sin and God is sinless
• God is not rude
• God is not self-seeking - He has sought us since the beginning, even to the point of death!
  
• God is not easily angered - His word says He is slow to anger and quick to forgive
• God keeps no record of wrongs - our sin is cast as far from Him as the east is from the west when we become Christians.
• God does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth - He is kind and has our best intentions at heart even when we feel like He's forgotten us.
• God always protects - we've been saved from our sin and eternity away from Him!
• God always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres - He didn't give up thousands of years ago when we chose our own path ... He continued hoping that we'd come back to Him and persevered to the point of His own suffering and death, trusting that we'd accept His gift of forgiveness!
• God never fails. I love that.
• These three remain: faith, hope, and God. But the greatest of these is God. Of course! You can't have faith or hope without God! How cool!

And there is one last scripture that I think is great when looking at God as love itself. Romans 13:9-10, "The commandments, 'Do not commit adultery,' 'Do not murder,' 'Do not steal,' 'Do not covet,' and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."

Therefore God is the fulfillment of the law! Do you know what that means? "The Law" refers to the "Law of Moses;" the commandments that God gave to His people through Moses and the subsequent laws in the Old Testament that were required for us to cleanse ourselves to be acceptable to a perfect and holy God. But when Christ died in our place - when He shed His sinless blood to atone for our sins - then He became the fulfillment of the law. That's when Christianity split from Judaism since those who practice Judaism still follow the Old Law.

That's also why people who do not understand the Bible but still choose to criticize it point out inconsistencies between the Old and New testaments. That's because they've correctly noted that there are two systems in place there. It says plainly in the New Testament though that we are no longer under the law, but under grace. We don't have to atone for our own sins anymore, God did it for us 2000 years ago!

God is the fulfillment of the law that we were incapable of carrying out. We have now to only live as Christ did - to love our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus Christ loved us so much in fact that He gave his life for us. God the Father loved us SO much that He gave His own son so that His holy law would be fulfilled and we could be in His presence once again. "For God so loved the world ..." His love is unfathomable to us because we can't wrap our little brains around who God is, but we know that God is love.

Lucky for us, love never fails. God never fails...