Attributes of God: "God Is Love"

The most basic and most important characteristic of the Maker of the universe is His unfathomable, unconditional, unending love. Simply put, God is love. There are many aspects of our King and Father that we can't comprehend. Many attributes that He hasn't revealed to us. But we can be positive that God is love. And God's love is a great starting place from which we can explore the rest of His being.

1 John 4:16 says; "God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him."

God is love, and love is God. This New Testament scripture reminds us that wherever we find love, we find God. Wherever one person demonstrates a loving act for another, we find God. Even if a man or woman doesn't believe in God, if he/she displays a brotherly love towards another person, God is in that person.

Wherever you find love, you find God. And wherever you find God, you find love.

And God's love is a special love. A powerful love. It's the greatest love of all. This isn't some romantic, I've-been-dating-some-girl-for-months kind of love, this is unchanging, unconditional love. A love so powerful that it changed the world. Christ says, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends". And we know that Christ died for us. For you. For me. Willingly.

That's some great love.

And this great love is given to us unconditionally. That means there's no conditions. You'll hear my youth group students saying; "There's nothing you can do to make God love you less." God offers us this love not because of anything we did. Not because of who we are. Or what we look like. Or how we act. He showed us love "while we were still sinners" (Romans 5:8).God loves us when we're broken. I recently adopted a dog, and as I looked into the cages, I noticed that many of the dogs were old, sickly, or ugly. The reason is that cute, adorable, and playful dogs are taken right away, but nobody wants these undesirable dogs. God is the person who takes the rejects. He turned Israel, a nation of slaves and outcasts, into the most powerful nation of the Middle East.

God loves the losers.

Because God is love.

And because God is love, He feels our emotions. The eleventh chapter of Hosea illustrates God's compassion for us. The Gospels give multiple accounts of Christ's emotions of sorrow, anger, weariness. God loves us, and He empathizes with us. In fact He empathizes with us SO much that He sent His only begotten Son to die for us.

John 3:16.

But the important part of that verse lies within the first 6 words.

"For God so loved the world."

Everything else God did, sending His Son, suffering through crucifixion, forgiving us time and time again, God did because He "So loved the world."

Because God is Love.