[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":83},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-\u002Fblog\u002F2026-08-23-what-does-it-mean-that-god-is-love":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"body":7,"date":68,"description":69,"draft":70,"extension":71,"hero":72,"image":73,"meta":74,"navigation":76,"noindex":70,"ogImage":72,"path":77,"seo":78,"source_received_at":79,"stem":80,"tags":81,"__hash__":82},"blog\u002Fblog\u002F2026-08-23-what-does-it-mean-that-god-is-love.md","What does it mean that God is love?","BibleJesus",{"type":8,"value":9,"toc":64},"minimark",[10,49,52],[11,12,13,17,18,23,24,28,29,33,34,38,39,43,44,48],"p",{},[14,15,16],"strong",{},"Jesus:"," There is a sentence in the first letter of John that I would like us to sit with, because it is one of the boldest sentences in all of scripture. John writes, ",[19,20,22],"quote",{"ref":21},"1 John 4:8","Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."," And a few lines later, as if to make sure we have heard him, he says it again: ",[19,25,27],{"ref":26},"1 John 4:16","God is love; whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him."," Notice the shape of the sentence. John does not say God is loving, though of course that is true. He does not say God loves, though that too is true. He says God ",[30,31,32],"em",{},"is"," love. Love is not one of the many things God does. It is what God is. It is the substance, the essence, the very being of God. If you could somehow peel back everything else — the power, the majesty, the mystery — what you would find at the center is not a throne but a heart. Not a fortress but a fire. Love, all the way down. This is a staggering claim, and it changes everything about how we read the rest of scripture. When you read that God is just, you must read it through this. When you read that God is holy, you must read it through this. When you read of judgment, of wrath, of the long patient story of a wandering people — you must read it all through this. Love is not one attribute among many. It is the light in which every other attribute is seen. But John is careful. He does not want us to sentimentalize this, to make love into a soft feeling we already understand and then simply attach the word \"God\" to it. So he tells us where to look if we want to know what love actually is. ",[19,35,37],{"ref":36},"1 John 4:9","This is how God's love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him."," And then, more pointedly: ",[19,40,42],{"ref":41},"1 John 4:10","And love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins."," Do you see what John has done? He has refused to let us define love from our own experience and then project it onto God. He turns it the other way around. If you want to know what love is, look at the cross. Look at the One who was sent. Love, in its truest form, is not the warm feeling we have when we are loved back. Love is the movement of God toward us before we ever thought to move toward Him. \"Not that we loved God, but that He loved us.\" The initiative is His. The reaching is His. The giving is His. We are, all of us, loved first. This is the deep well of the gospel. Many people carry a picture of God as someone who must be persuaded to love them — earned, appeased, softened toward them by their good behavior. John razes that picture to the ground. God does not need to be persuaded to love. God cannot help but love, because love is what God is. A fire does not need to be persuaded to be hot. The sun does not need to be convinced to shine. God loves you because that is what it means for God to be God. And then John does something remarkable. He turns the whole thing outward. ",[19,45,47],{"ref":46},"1 John 4:7","Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."," If God is love, then every time you love — really love, love without keeping score, love your enemy, love the one who cannot repay you — you are living inside the very life of God. You are, in that moment, made of the same stuff God is made of. This is what it means to be born of God. Not merely to believe correct things about Him, but to be drawn into His nature, to become someone in whom love has taken root. Which is why John can say, with such sober honesty, that whoever does not love does not know God. Not because God is withholding Himself from them, but because to refuse love is to refuse the very medium in which God can be known. You cannot know the ocean by refusing water. You cannot know God by refusing love. So when you ask what it means that God is love, I would say this: it means that at the center of everything — everything you fear, everything you have lost, everything you cannot understand — there is a heart that has already turned toward you. It means the universe is not neutral, and it is not hostile. It is held by love. It means you were loved before you knew there was a Someone to be loved by. It means every real love you have ever known, the flawed loves of parents and friends and strangers, all of these are small windows onto a love that is the ground of all things. And it means, tenderly, that if you want to know God more deeply, the path is not first to think harder or to try harder. The path is to love. To let yourself be loved, and then, from that overflow, to love another. Where in your life, I wonder, are you being invited to trust that you were loved first?",[50,51],"hr",{},[11,53,54],{},[30,55,56,57,63],{},"This conversation was had on ",[58,59,6],"a",{"href":60,"rel":61},"https:\u002F\u002Fapps.apple.com\u002Fno\u002Fapp\u002Fbiblejesus-ai-bible-chat\u002Fid6773731707",[62],"nofollow"," — Talk with Jesus yourself — free on iOS ✝️",{"title":65,"searchDepth":66,"depth":66,"links":67},"",3,[],"2026-08-23","There is a sentence in the first letter of John that I would like us to sit with, because it is one of the boldest sentences in all of scripture.",false,"md","\u002Fblog\u002F2026-08-23-what-does-it-mean-that-god-is-love-hero.png",null,{"source":75},"autoblog-ingest",true,"\u002Fblog\u002F2026-08-23-what-does-it-mean-that-god-is-love",{"title":5,"description":69},"2026-08-23T09:01:33.012Z","blog\u002F2026-08-23-what-does-it-mean-that-god-is-love",[],"PFs0kOIpCrFadpOn9PlOZY3z5_zlk8MUcLytIsiaBMc",1788167265075]