Again I say it: God is Love
The passage below is the first day's entry in A Theology of Desire.
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. (1 John 4:7-8)
God is love.
My theology increasingly revolves around this key truth, the various tenets of it held in motion by the force of its incredible mass. This reality is as simple and pure as the phrase “I love you,” but like that phrase, is rich with texture and nuance, and abundant in variations of meaning. The concept can be endlessly contemplated, and for the lucky, it can be experienced.
God is love.
All the kinds of love, all the pain and promise of love, all the comfort and nurture of love, all the calling to do better of love, all the yearning and satisfaction of love.
God is Love itself, and because we are made in God’s image, we are by nature lovers. There is nothing more natural to us than loving. If we reflect God’s essence, we must also be love. Our time here and now, with bodies made of spinning particles of energy, is a journey of discovering what it means to be love, and to live fully into that reality as Jesus did.
God is love, and we are love, called and drawn to seek deep union with others and with God. The forces of darkness want to disrupt and distort this reality in all sorts of ways, including our understanding and use of sex. We were created as sexual beings in part as a reflection of the Creator, which means sex is good and right and even holy.
God is love.
I urge you to spend some time resting in this truth. Think about what it means. Think about all the ways it might apply, especially those ways you haven’t considered before. Think about all the ways you love, and how those ways might extrapolate out to the God in whose image and likeness we are formed.
God is love.
Love wants us to sample His goodness, with unlimited samplings.
Catherine Toon
