God is love?

The phrase “God is love” from the first letter of John sort of created a revolution in my thinking of God, and of love. For a long time, I read and meditated and thought about what the phrase “God is love” means. Our society has taken the word “love” and degrraded it, and warped it, and poisoned it with all kinds of falsehoods. For one thing, in the English language, we have one word for love. While in Greek, the language the New Testament was written in, there are several words for different kinds of love, some of which are “storge”, “philios”, “eros”, “agape”. The word which is used for God’s love in the New Testament is usually “agape”. That is a subject for another time.

But I wanted to share this prayer request, and ask any of you who are interested to pray in agreement with it.

Dear God, please open us to the mystery of Your love. Help all of us, ourselves, our family, friends, neighbors, even our enemies, to understand what the meaning of the phrase “God is love” is. Help us to understand what it means when we say that You are love. That our understanding, experience, and sharing of love is in terms of You, and that we do not try to shrink You into the finite, created confines of our own flawed and limited conceptions of what we, or the world calls “love”. Help us to know that You are love, and to conform our acts and works of love to Your proportions, and not the other way around. In Jesus’ name, and by the grace of the holy Spirit, I pray. Amen