Love is…
A few years after I stopped running from God, he led me back to church and moved me to the Bay Area. He got me planted in a good church that I have so many good memories of. I remember one Sunday when one of the associate pastors was preaching. He was up on stage preaching about God when exuberantly he said “God is a joyful God!” I remember asking myself if I believed that God was joyful. My immediate response to myself (in my head) was “No, I think he’s angry, judgmental, and critical.” I was a bit more than surprised! I immediately said to the Lord, “Uh, we’ve got a problem.” I told the Lord that he was going to have to fix my perception of him.
As usual, God went to work. It took time. He showed me that Satan’s goal was to put a wedge between me and God’s love however he could. In my case, it came in the form of creating painful and sometimes abusive circumstances that caused me to think that God was angry, judgmental, and critical. As God led me down the path of healing this problem, he took me to 1 Corinthians 13:4-8, often referred to as the “Love” chapter. He reminded me how the Bible says that “God is love” in 1 John 4:16 and then he showed me what the Bible says love is through the “Love” chapter. It says “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails…” (NASB)
As God had me meditate on these scriptures, I realized that because God is love, I could replace the word “love” in the scriptures above with God. God is patient. God is kind. God is not jealous. God does not brag. God is not arrogant. God does not act unbecomingly. God does not seek his own. God is not provoked. God does not take into account a wrong suffered. God does not rejoice in unrighteousness. God rejoices with the truth. God bears all things. God believes all things. God hopes all things. God endures all things. God never fails.
Anytime I find myself questioning or doubting who God is, I go back to these scriptures and use them to remind myself about the truth of God’s character and nature. May God bless you and anchor you in increasing measure to the truth of who he really is!
