The book of John and the three books of I, II, III John have a huge message I’ve not understood or accepted well throughout my life thus far. This is the message of love. There is no disciple of Christ who addresses love in their writing as much as John does. Paul certainly addresses it in I Corinthians 13 as he writes to the christians of Corinth. Yet, John’s entire theme of writing is significantly and continuously bringing the reader back to the critical side of love. I John 4 emphasizes this and today my eyes were opened to this in ways I’ve not seen before.

Love is a noun first and foremost. God is Love. They are synonymous terms. Love is also a verb. It is an action verb and it also is a state of being verb. Today God is addressing my need to understand Love as a state of being verb. I have struggled my entire life with who I am. I committed early in my life to never BE like my dad or BE like my brother. (The state of being verb.) In fact, I didn’t want to be like any of my brothers as far as the way they handled love. I was going to do a better job at this. Little did I know that I would end up “being love” very similarly to my brothers. Also, in addition, I learned to fear what I saw man do with what he called love. This love looked too much like abuse and for me it was abuse.

Today I see in I John 4:16–“And we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” I’ve known living in fear, I’m learning what it is to actually live in love. Christ told us to be discerning with man, not to judge him, but to discern him. In this category of love, I’ve feared far more than anything else. I see all of this quite clearly today and now God is wanting to begin replacing this fear with Him–His Love. This time I accept the invitation with open arms!