What is love?
What IS love?
Every understanding of love has to begin with God and with His Son, Jesus Christ, because God is love.
Read 1 John 4:7-8
We cannot define love without God or apart from God.
Let us remember that we can come up with no description of love in an accurate way that is apart from His own definition of it.
Read Luke 15:11-24
Read Luke 15:20
Love is God the Father waiting with expectation, with hope, with concern, with compassion, with open arms, and with forgiveness for His wayward sons to come home.
When God looks at you, He looks at you like a three year old child seated on His knee, reading your favorite story, encompassed in the safety of His presence.
Jesus on the cross is the very embodiment of God’s love.
Read 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
While God’s love is compassionate, merciful, intimate, and forgiving, it isn’t easy nor cheesy.
Chip Ingram defines love as “giving another person what they need the most when they deserve it least.”
Most of the world’s definitions of love are based on feeling or emotion.
One of the greatest lies of our time is the statement: “Love Is Love”.
To love as God loves is a matter of and .
You can have stained glass, Bibles, crosses, and a building full of people, but if you don’t have the love of Christ, you don’t have the church.
The invitation is to pray for and to receive the grace to become more like Jesus and to love more like Jesus.
Here are some self-reflection questions based on 1 John 4:7–12.
Do I genuinely love others as God has loved me?
- How does my love for others reflect God’s sacrificial and unconditional love?
2. Where in my life am I withholding love or grace?
- Are there people I find difficult to love? Why?
3. How have I experienced God’s love personally?
- Do I allow that love to transform the way I treat others?
4. In what ways do I show God’s love to others?
- Is it through words, service, patience, forgiveness, or something else?
5. Am I relying on God’s love as my source of strength?
- Or am I trying to love others in my own power?
6. Do I recognize that loving others is not optional for a believer?
- How seriously do I take the command to “love one another”?
7. How does my community reflect God’s love?
- Is there a culture of grace, forgiveness, and support?
8. Am I open to letting God’s love flow through me—even when it’s inconvenient or uncomfortable?
- What stops me from doing so?