God is Love.

Who Am I?

I was reading a book in which the author told his readers to think about the fact we are a part of God's life. If we are Christians, we know God is a part of our life, but do we realize we are a part of His?

I closed my eyes and tried to imagine how God saw me as a part of his life. I saw in my mind a beach with thousands of pebbles. The pebbles were people. God bent down and his hand was sifting through the pebbles. He came to mine - a pebble that was me - he picked it up for a moment and then threw it aside.

I opened my eyes and realized that though I have thought I do believe God loves me - I don't. This brought tears to my eyes. I prayed God would help me believe in his love for me. I know that to love him in the best way possible, I need to believe he loves me too.

I suppose I can't believe in real love for myself because my father abused me when I was very young. That just screwed me up for love and trust. But, even if deep down I don't think He loves me, my intellect knows he is with me and will save me. I'm sure that is enough for him.

Who Is God?

God is love. That's what the Bible says about him. He doesn't just love - he IS love. He is where love originates. He is the one who fills our hearts with love. He is love personified.

 "I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness." 
Jeremiah 31:3

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us."  1John 4:7-12

What is True Love?

Two of my granddaughters.

Who is God?

"God is love."  1John 4:16

It doesn't say, "God loves," but God IS love.  He is the source of all love.

"If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."

1 Corinthians 13

Who am I?

Someone who needs love. We are created for love. That is the empty spot in our soul that needs God. No one on earth will fill that need for perfect love. People may love us, but it is usually conditional. God's love is unconditional. He loved you when you were born; he will love you when you die. 

Some people say they can't understand a love like that, but I think I can. I love my daughters and grandchildren unconditionally. Nothing they say or do can quench my love for them. When you finally believe God loves you like that, you will find that peace Christians are always talking about.