I used to have a pretty long list of things I thought I knew about God. I’d say now, I’m reduced to one certainty: God is love. What does that mean? Here’s what I think.

1.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (1 Jn 4:8)

If you go to church, hopefully you heard there that God is love. If you didn’t hear it there, then maybe you need to find another church. Even if you don’t subscribe to organized religion, you’ve probably heard it before. Have you ever really thought about the implications of that?

It doesn’t just say God loves us or God is loving. God is love. That means even if there were no people for God to love or to love each other, even if there were no living creatures capable of love in even its most primitive form, love would still exist because God is love.

The first part of this verse is just as important. Knowing God means knowing God is love. Knowing God is love should result in us loving one another. If we don’t love one another, then we don’t love God (cf. 1 Jn 4:7, 20).

2.  We love because [God] first loved us. (1 Jn 4:19)

This tells me all human love is possible because God first loved us. If you want proof of God’s existence, consider our capacity to love. Years ago, I went to the funeral of a Muslim friend’s father. The imam told a parable of a doctor who was going home from a thirty-six hour shift. On the way, he saw a man unconscious in a ditch. Even though he was exhausted, she pulled over, revived him, his wounds, and drove him home. And because the man was poor, he refused to take any payment for it.

How do you feel hearing a story like that? I’m guessing whether you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or whatever, you admire that doctor. The Imam said, “Anyone, even someone who doesn’t believe in God, would look at that and say the doctor did a beautiful thing. Why? Because God placed an appreciation of love and beauty in the human heart.”

To this day, I consider that the best argument for God’s existence I have ever heard. We love because God first loved us. How do we know God loved us? That brings me to the next verse.

3.  But God proves [God’s] love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8)

Tell me if you can relate to this. There were times in my life when I thought God hated me, abandoned me, gave up on me, or just did not care enough to be bothered with me. Sometimes I blamed God for it, but more often I blamed myself.

When Martin Luther was a monk, he tried harder than anyone to please God. One day, another monk asked if he loved God. “Love God? Sometimes I hate him!” Why did he hate God (sometimes)? Because he kept trying and trying to please God, and no matter how much he prayed, or how diligent he was in confessing and repenting of his sins, it was never enough. Let’s just say I can relate.

If you have ever felt that way, look at that verse again.

But I already know Christ died for me.

No, look at the whole verse. How does it start? God has already proved God’s love for us. You don’t have to prove how much you love God, because the point of what Christ did at the cross was to prove how much God loves us. What speaks to me most powerfully is that has already happened. That means you can never change it. God’s love and acceptance of you is not based on what you do or don’t do. It’s based on what Christ already did.

4. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39)

It’s easy to believe God loves us when things are going well. Life is good, and so is God. But what about when life isn’t so good?

The Prosperity Gospel taught me a life of faith would protect me from peril, poverty, death, things present, things to come, hardship, persecution, or sickness. If you want health, wealth, a perfect marriage, obedient children, and success in all your endeavors, you just have to believe God for it, and it will be so. If it doesn’t happen immediately, keep believing, keep being faithful to God, and it will happen. But what if it still doesn’t happen? Either you sinned or you didn’t have enough faith, whatever that means.

Read these verses again. Actually, let’s start a few verses before that.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Rom 8:35-39)

There is a lot in there that the Prosperity Gospel says will not happen if you are faithful to God and believe the Bible. But this passage does not say a life of faith will protect you from hardship, distress, hunger, poverty, peril, rulers, things present, things to come, or anything in all creation we don’t want in our lives. It only says none of that ever has or ever will separate us from the love of God in Christ.

Paul did not just preach this. He lived it. Everywhere he went to teach the Gospel, it seems they would throw him in prison, beat him, scourge him, stone him, or accuse him of all kinds of mischief he never did. Throw on top of that shipwrecks, illness, robbers, possible vision problems, people who opposed him in his own congregations, charlatans fleecing his people, and a mysterious “thorn in the flesh” that he could not pray away, according to the Prosperity Gospel, God just never favored him at all. Yet I cannot find anywhere in his letters or the book of Acts where Paul ever questioned God’s love for him.

You can’t separate yourself from the love of God in Christ. Other people can’t separate you from the love of God in Christ. Pain, distress, famine, prison, persecution, gossip, fire, flood … No! Nothing that ever has happened, is happening, or could happen to us can separate us from the love of God in Christ. Not even you can make God stop loving you, because God is love.

5.  For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3:16)

Of course I had to include this one. If you grew up in the church, this was probably the first Bible verse you memorized. John’s attitude toward the world is usually negative. It is full of sin and corruption that only God can save us from. But even John had to acknowledge God loved the world in spite of that. God gave his only Son for us, to prove God’s love and offer us the gift of eternal life.

You might think that means going to heaven when we die. But in the truest sense, eternal life is life in relationship with God, who is love. When our lives reflect God’s love, that is eternal life. When a lawyer asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, it turned out he already knew the answer: Love God and love your neighbor (Luk 10:26-29). Do this, Jesus said, and you will have eternal life, here and now, and whatever awaits us after death.

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So those are my top five verses about God’s love. Which verses speak God’s love most powerfully to you? Do you think I missed any? Let me know in the comments. To sum things up, I will leave you with a few more words from John’s Epistle.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

(1 Jn 4:7)

Grace and peace to you.

{All scripture quotes come from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) unless otherwise noted.}