God Is Love

Transcript

Hello, my friend… so glad you're with me today. This is By God's Call — day 358, God Is Love.

"Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love." 1 John 4:8.

Notice carefully what John is not saying. He does not say God has love, the way someone has a talent or one quality among several. He says God is love. It is the very substance of who God is. You cannot strip love away from God and still have God left over — because love is not something He does occasionally. It is who He is, all the time, in every decision, in every gesture toward creation.

And here comes the part that stings a little: "anyone who does not love does not know God." John isn't talking about a passing feeling. He is making a strong claim about knowledge. If you say you know God, but live without love for the people around you, something doesn't add up. Because truly knowing who God is always overflows into love — it isn't optional, it isn't just for the people gifted at easy relationships.

And look at the context where John writes this. It isn't a philosophical treatise on the divine nature, detached from real life. It's a practical letter, full of instructions on how to treat fellow believers, how to forgive, how not to close your heart to someone in need. The love John is talking about has a name, a face, an address.

That's challenging, isn't it? Because it's easy to declare that you love God in the abstract. It's much harder to love the specific person who irritated you yesterday, who let you down last week, who never seems to return the care you offer them.

But if God is love, then a lack of love in me isn't just an isolated slip — it's a sign that I still have distance to travel in truly knowing Him. And the good news is that this love doesn't need to be manufactured by my own effort. It grows out of staying close to God, letting His nature overflow into mine, until loving stops being a burden and starts being fruit.

I want to ask you, gently: is there someone in your life right now who is hard to love? Someone you avoid, someone you've already crossed off the list, someone you treat with polite distance instead of real love? Maybe it's time to let God reopen that space.

So today, I want to invite you to think of that person — one, specifically — and do one concrete act of love for them. Not because the feeling will show up first. Sometimes the feeling comes after obedience, not before it.

God is love. And whoever truly knows God, loves.

Stay close to God. Pray — then act. I'll see you tomorrow, my friend.