God is Love?

It says twice in the Bible that God is love*.

1 John (4:8, 4:16, ESV)

But if Americans believe that love is a variable mixture of infatuation, romance, physical intimacy, preference, altruism and/or warm friendship, then do they know who this ‘God of love’ is in any meaningful way?

The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a (ESV) that: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”

So if ‘God is love’, does God’s own definition of love give us insight? Yes it does! For we can see in the words and thoughts and actions of our Lord Jesus Christ that he loved us and that he also loved his enemies.

If we know what God means when He says that He is love, and we know how he defines the word, do we know who God is in any meaningful way? Yes we do!

If we know what God means when He says that He is love, and we know how he defines the word, are we better able to discern His Holy Spirit within us? Yes we are!

If we know what God means when He says that He is love, can we discern whether our words and thoughts and actions are godly? Yes we can!

But if we do not know, and remember, and practice the love of God on purpose, then we risk worshiping a god of infatuation, romance, physical intimacy, preference, altruism and/or warm friendship by default. This is not who God is. Isn’t such a god a false god? Isn’t living as if American love is the great commandment a way of worshiping falsely?

I wonder how many American Christians like worshiping their own experiences of infatuation, romance, physical intimacy, preference, altruism and/or warm friendships?

What do you think?

*agape, not phileo