God is Love

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Compiled by The BibleStudyTools Staff on 02/12/2024
God is Love

What does the Bible mean that God is love? How can we know that statement is true, and how does God show us that He is the very definition of love?

The Bible teaches us that God's essence is love. This means that love defines who God is. In 1 John 4:8 and 4:16, it says that "God is love." This shows us that everything God does is because of His love for us. For example, John 3:16 says that God sent His Son, Jesus, because He loves us so much. Romans 5:8 tells us that Jesus died for us even when we were still sinners. This shows that God's love is unconditional and forgiving. So, when we say "God is love," we mean that His love is always there for us, no matter what.

The following Scriptures will help you understand the truth of the simple yet profound statement that "God is love." With the Bible verses below, you will be able to better understand the importance of God's nature and how we are called to share His love to our world.

"God is Love" Bible Verses

"Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:8)

"So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." (1 John 4:16)

"We love because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

How is God "Love"?

1. Love began with God when he created the world and us. Without Him, there would be no love in the world because it came from Him.
2. God's primary nature is to love, as shown by His rescue plan for us through His Son, Jesus Christ. The cross of Jesus is the greatest demonstration of God's love for us.
3. God's saving work of grace in the heart of the sinner is the true source of love. God sent his Holy Spirit to transform us and make us new in love.
4. God's greatest commandment for us is to love the Lord and to love one another. God calls us to be the love in our world that He created us to be.

Learn more at your article: God Is Love: 5 Implications of This Amazing Attribute of God

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1 John 3:1

1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
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1 Peter 1:23

23 For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
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2 Peter 3:9

2 Peter 3:9
9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
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Daniel 9:4

4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed: “Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments,
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Deuteronomy 7:9

9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.
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Deuteronomy 30:20

20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
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Ezekiel 18:32

Ezekiel 18:32
32 For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!
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Hebrews 6:10

God is Not Unjust
10 God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.
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John 3:8

8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
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John 13:35

Love One Another
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
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John 14:31

31 but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me.“Come now; let us leave.
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Romans 6:23

Romans 6:23
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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1 John 5:2-3

2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,
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John 17:22-23

22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—
23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
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Ezekiel 36:26-27

26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
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Ephesians 2:4-5

4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,
5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.
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Deuteronomy 10:12-13

12 And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
13 and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?
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2 Corinthians 6:17-18

17 Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”
18 And, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
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John 3:16-18

You Are Loved
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
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Romans 5:6-8

Romans 5:8
6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.
8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
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Matthew 22:36-40

Love the Lord
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
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Deuteronomy 6:1-5

1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess,
2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.
3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
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1 John 3:11-18

Love is...
11 For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous.
13 Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you.
14 We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
15 Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.
16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.
17 If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person?
18 Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
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1 John 4:7-16

Advent Week 4 - Love
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.
14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.
16 And so 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.
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