"He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."
1 John 4:8
Genuine love is not easy to find today. The idea of love has been so watered down by the world that it is well-nigh impossible to understand its true meaning. I fear that most people like the idea of love, but don’t know what it is or how to apply it correctly. As we should do in every part of our lives, we believers need to take this misunderstood word back to the Word of God to find out what it is all about. Let me encourage you to read 1 John 4:1-11 before reading further in this devotion.
In our verse for today, the Apostle John made two simple statements about love that we need to know.
“He that loveth not knoweth not God.”
The unloving person has a problem with relationships. Relationships without love are bound to fail. The absence of love in a person’s life points to the fact that that person has never known God. He or she has had no experience with God because God is the source of Biblical love. The scriptures do not say that a lost man cannot do acts of love. Man was made “in the image of God,” and even though man’s Fall marred that image, he can still do some flawed, but God-like things. But even the most loving things a lost person can do will never measure up to God’s kind of love. God’s love is unilateral and is never selfish. His love is sacrificial and is always looking to bless the object of His love. In a word, His love is “giving.” This kind of love is giving itself to the other. “Hate” is not the opposite of this kind of godly love, but rather “selfishness.”
According to 1 John 4:7-8, anyone who doesn’t love God’s people doesn’t know God. Our love for God and His people tells much about us and what kind of love we possess.
“God is love.”
Please note that God is not just “loving,” but He is “love” itself. We know that God’s attributes are many. He is holy, just, and righteous. Have you noticed that He is never called, “Holy,” or “Righteous?” These are not His names but His attributes. But He is called “Love.” “God is Love.”
It’s important to point out that the Bible never says that “love is God.” That would be a misrepresentation of both God and love. God is not just loving, but He has many other qualities as well.
People will often point at the problems in the world today as their proof that either “there is no God,” or that “God is not good.” “In the midst of all that occurs on the earth of sadness, sin, and sorrow, there are abundant evidences that God is love,” (Barnes).1 After God created the universe, He looked at His work and exclaimed, “It is good.” He built the earth with beauty and goodness for His creatures who would inhabit it. Is that not love? After Adam and Eve sinned and plunged the human race into sin, God cursed the earth for man’s sake and then told of the One who would come and redeem fallen man from sin. Is that not the work of love?
If you do not know this loving God personally, let me invite you to turn from your sin and ask Him to be your Savior. If you need help with this, please contact us.
Our verse to teaches me that My God is Love.
1. Albert Barnes, Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, electronic version in eSword.