God is Love

1 John 4:7-9 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
 
GOD is love. In the Greek meaning, love means that God is compassionate, kind, considerate and unselfish.
   And this is not always a gentle, easy love. The love that is God causes excruciating physical pain and suffering. This love required blood and sacrifice, darkness and death, so it would be a complete love. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. This is God’s extreme compassion, kindness, consideration and unselfishness. God sent his Son to be the sacrifice on the cross, so he could atone for all the ways we do not love God.
   The atoning sacrifice in God’s law is the ceremonial removal of sin from Israel. The priest sacrifices one goat and sprinkles his blood on the altar. On a second goat, the priest lays his hands and confesses Israel’s sins. That goat is sent from the camp into the desert carrying the sins of the nation. (Leviticus 16)
   That law was fulfilled in Jesus. He is our atoning sacrifice because the Father laid the sins of the world on his Son. He sent him outside the camp of Jerusalem to place him on the cross – the altar of blood sacrifice. This love is the only way we can personally know God is love. God’s compassion, kindness, consideration and unselfishness is the only reason we do not still live in our sin nature. We are no longer subject to the law that cannot redeem us. We are under the care of the God who loves us. 
   God’s love is the reason we can love him. He has shown us how to be compassionate, kind, considerate and unselfish. Romans 5:7-8 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 
   How must we respond? Of course we must love God, and we must love one another. We love God because he is love. We love others because everyone needs kindness, compassion, consideration and generosity. 1 John 4:11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
   Think about it. When you love others as God loves you, they get to know God is love.