Everyday Prayers for LoveSample

God Is Love

Our current generation is inundated with books, songs, television shows, and movies that have all tried to explain love. However, their descriptions always seem to come up short. While humans have debated the true meaning of love for centuries, Scripture provides us with the uncomplicated, pure definition: God is love.

Unfortunately, love has become a confusing term with little meaning. In most instances in our English language, we use the word love to describe our emotions about everything from food, to family, to God. However, the biblical Greek language uses four different words to distinguish the various meanings of love: eros (romantic), philia (brotherly), storage (familiar), and agape (sacrificial). Agape love is divine and comes from God. It is superior to all other loves and is the greatest and highest form. It is perfect, holy, and pure. Because God is eternal, His affection towards us will last forever. He is the origin AND the culmination of love. The alpha and the omega.

This truth is affirmed in Genesis 1:1. God did not need to form the universe, yet He chose to make it. Why? Because adoration is best expressed towards something or someone else. God brought the world and humanity into existence as an expression of His own heart.

Throughout God’s Word, it is evident that everything the Lord has done is motivated by love. His devotion has always involved choice and action. From Him, we learn that love isn’t just a feeling, it is a verb. It is something we give; something we do. The apostle Paul provides us with a beautiful example of love in action in 1 Corinthians 13.

Living out the characteristics of love can sometimes prove difficult. Our human nature consistently fails. Apart from the Holy Spirit, we cannot love like He does. But God created us in His image. If God is love, we can be too.

Prayer

Father, love can be so confusing. The world has tainted the term. Help me to understand You are the origin of love and how much You adore me. Let it be the foundation of all I think, say, and do. In Jesus’s name, amen.

Questions for Deeper Reflection

1. How would you describe love? Do you typically view love as a feeling? When you view love as a verb, does that change your perspective?
2. Does knowing the origin of love change the way you view God?