God Is Love

God Is Love

Someone had lettered the white sign by hand with a red Magic Marker and posted it on a busy street corner. As I pulled up to the light, I glanced out the window and saw its message: “God is love.” That’s all it said. No sales pitch, no phone number. Just “God is love.” It was the last day of the year (and my birthday, to boot). I was on my way to an appointment, feeling slightly flu-ish and distracted by my own coughing. But when I saw the sign, I had to smile. “He is,” I agreed out loud.

I don’t know what that sign might have accomplished while on display. To me it was a reminder of a truth I’ve known for a long time but can never hear enough: that the Lord of the universe, the maker of all that is, is the one thing that we all want more than we want almost anything else—love.

Only not cheap love. Or flimsy love. Or fleeting love. No. He’s the kind of long-suffering, deliberate, full-out love that scares you to death before it delivers you whole. The kind that means business and doesn’t bluff or blink or fool around. He is the kind of love that dies to redeem its beloved and then kicks death in the teeth to make it stick. And any reminder of that—even a hastily scrawled and randomly placed one—is a welcome reminder indeed.

Because he is love, love is within my reach. Nearer than my next breath. More sure than the sunrise. Because I’ve seen his defining love, I have a pattern to follow. Because he is love, love is no mere vapor or feeling or idea. Because he is love, love has a name—and it’s one that I know: Jesus.

God is love. When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ’s. There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. . . . First we were loved, now we love. He loved us first.

1 John 4:17-19, MSG