And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

—1 Corinthians 13:13

Our society is obsessed with love. Songs, movies, and books abound on the topic. If we grow up immersed in pop culture, as I was, media portrayals of love can have a deep and abiding effect on our ideas about love. And many of those ideas can be warped, unhealthy, and altogether false. One example is the popular modern saying, “Love is love.” While that might make us feel good and like we ourselves are being loving when we say it, when we look to Scripture, a markedly different reality about love emerges.

The word “love” is used a lot in the Bible. Depending on the translation, the number ranges anywhere from three hundred to eight hundred times. And that’s not including variations like “loved” and “loving.”

From this information alone, it’s clear that love is important to God—and it therefore should be important to us.

John 3:16 is probably the most famous verse that contains the word love: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This might be followed in popularity by a passage often recited in wedding ceremonies, 1 Corinthians 13, sometimes referred to as the “love” chapter.

One of my favorite verses about love is 1 John 4:8: “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” Knowing the truth that “God is love” has made a huge difference in my life, particularly when I can’t make sense of something that’s happened.

Several years ago, when I was still working full-time, one of our leaders unexpectedly died. He was a godly man with tremendous faith, beloved by many, and the shock of his death left all of us shaken. A few days afterward, I was speaking with a coworker about the situation, and she said, “I just don’t understand why God would take him away from us, away from his wife and kids.”

I replied, “I don’t think this is something we can understand. But we do know that God is love. We either believe that, or we don’t. If we believe it, then we can also trust that His will is being done in our lives, even when we’re confused, hurt, and angry. He sees us in our suffering, and we can throw ourselves on His mercy. Some days, that’s really all we’re able to do.”

“Well, you have a much stronger faith than I do,” she remarked.

I smiled then said, “I don’t think that’s true at all. I’ve just that I’ve suffered a lot of loss over the years. Before I knew the Lord, I had no hope and my grief overwhelmed me. Now that I know He’s in control, I take tremendous comfort in that.”

In 1 John 3:16, the Apostle whom Jesus loved wrote: “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”

If we want to see “God is love”—love in the flesh—we need look no further than Jesus Christ on the cross.

The fact that He who was without sin would die for us sinners doesn’t make any human sense. It’s a love we can never fully comprehend. But we can believe it with the faith granted us by the Holy Spirit, and we can share that love with everyone we encounter.

Yours in Christ,

Amanda

xoxo

Scripture taken from the New King James Version^®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.