21. Live in love…
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
1 John 4:16
How amazing is this – GOD IS LOVE
I am absolutely blown away by these words and find it hard to get my head around them. GOD IS LOVE…
A little grammar lesson will help us explore the significance of John’s use of the word ‘love’ in this context. Love is either a noun (ie an object, a thing) or a verb (ie an action). Here, John uses love as a noun, something that can be described (eg warm love, extravagant love), something tangible.
When we say God IS love we are not describing his attributes as we would if love was able to be an adjective (ie describing word, which it can’t!). to say God is patient or kind describes him but to say God IS love we are equating God with love – they are one and the same.
So where is this taking us? To say God IS love we are also saying love IS God. They are interchangeable. You can’t have one without the other.
So how does this change our perception of love knowing who God is? – Father of all, creator, supreme ruler, majesty, king, etc. etc.?
To say God is love elevates love to a new platform beyond understanding. Love is not an ice-cream on a sunny day. Not the act of sex. Love is not something you fall in and out of at whim. Love is beautiful, eternal, unconditional. Love is unfathomably deep. Love is powerful, mighty, gentle, patient (Take another look at 1 Corinthians 13 for more).
Love is all that God is. So, let’s take an inventory of our love. Can I say with all honesty “Anita is love”? Definitely not, I am not God so I can’t BE love. However, John points out that if I live in this unconditional, God-defined love, if my every word and action is motivated by this love then I can say that God is in me and I in him.
As we come to the end of this journal let’s pause and consider what would my life, your life, look like if it was lived each day, each moment in love? We would see every situation in a different light. We would see every situation in a different light. In the words of St Francis, this is what living in love, living in God looks like:
Prayer: Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.
Amen
Action: Today, begin to live in the love that IS God wherever you go, whoever you are with, whatever you say and do…
Journal your thoughts…
