What Does Gods Love Look Like?

This is love:

not that we loved God,

but that he loved us.

God’s love is upside down from how we perceive the concept: I have to love to be loved. God defines his love as the fact that he loved us so much that he…

…sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.

Love is the Son of God who entered the darkness of our world and became flesh like us.

Love is the Sinless Savior who ate with immoral, cultural outcasts.

Love is the Great High Priest who pleaded with prideful religious leaders to believe that they did not have to work to be loved by Him.

Love is our Brother who comes to the darkness of our addiction.

Love is Jesus who lived and died selflessly to completely forgive us of our ugly selfishness.

Dear friends, since God so loved us,

We also ought to love one another.

Love is God who gave up his Son to a world that hated him to call us friends.

It is a love without any conditions put on it. We cannot hope to earn it, nor do we deserve it.

This is love:

not that we loved God,

but that he loved us.

This Valentine’s Day, as I crave that all my relationships would be the world’s picture of perfection, I ask God to remind me of this truth.

God, himself, is our friend.

His love frees us from trying to find ways to be loved and instead fills us with his love that truly loves others.

This is love:

not that we loved God,

but that he loved us

and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin.

Dear friends, since God so loved us,

We also ought to love one another.

1 John 4:10-11

Family Conversation Starter on Love using 1 John 4:10-11:

Have each member of the family give an example of love that they have seen in their own life.

Ask what does it mean that, “love is the truth that God loved us, not that we loved God.”

Jesus died on the cross to take the punishment we deserve. What does that mean to us?

Talk about ways that you can love each other more because God first loved you.

Talk to God together as a family. Tell him what you feel guilty about and what it means to you that he has forgiven you.