God is Love

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
1 John 4:7–12
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God is Love
The order of things matters. It isn’t that we love God, but that he first loved us. He shows us that love by sending forth the only begotten Son of God to the cross. Jesus told us that there is no greater expression of love than that a man lay down his life for his friends. This is what he has done for you. Which of us would gladly lay down our life for a friend, let alone an enemy? Jesus lays down his life for the whole world. It is in this love, the death of the Godman, Jesus, that we are made new in his righteousness against the wrath of God. Our sin caused the anger of God to be kindled. The death of Jesus has appeased his anger and cooled his wrath against us. Thanks be to God that in Christ Jesus we are made children of God. The children of God are loving to one another. They can’t help it. The love of Christ flows through them and in them. God abides in us and his love is perfected in us as we lay down our life, our desires, our pleasures for those around us. God has caused a great family for us. He has forged us together as his own and we rejoice in that love.