DAY 2 – Love | Planetshakers

Devotion

Day 2. Woohoo. We're looking at heaps of things about God... BUT, if we had to choose just one word to sum up who God is, that word would have to be "love". God doesn't just choose to love us or act in love toward us, but He IS love. Love comes from Him, and we will never understand or experience what real love is apart from Him. You can't separate God and love because love is who He is. This means that everything He does comes from love. His creation, His power, His calling on our lives—it is all an expression of His love for us. But the greatest way for us to understand God's love is through the cross. Before we even considered God, while we were still sinners, He gave His one and only son Jesus to die for us, because He loved us so much. God's love is not weak but God's love is unconditional (nothing can change it), it is unfailing (it never fails us), it is powerful (it defeats fear, sin & death), it surpasses understanding (we can't wrap our heads around it) and nothing can ever separate us from it. As you read today, if what you think about God doesn't line up with love, then maybe it's time to form a new picture. Let these words from scripture be the foundation of who you know Him to be.

Scripture

1 John 4:7-19 (NLT)

Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first.

John 3:16 (NLT)

For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NLT)

Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. Prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will become useless. But love will last forever!

Romans 8:38-39 (NLT)

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.