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. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love." -1 John 4:7-8

Next Sunday is Valentine's Day where we celebrate "love." Our culture loves to use that verse when trying to justify sins. "God is love." They argue that because God is love, He doesn't hate anyone. Because God is love, He accepts everyone as they are. Because God is love, He is understanding and forgiving.

They sadly fail to point out that God is just. God is righteous. God is holy. God does not compromise. God does not tolerate sin. We like to talk about God's love, but fail to remember that He is also a God of wrath. 

But... verse 12 says, " Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. " Therefore, we must love people regardless of their sin.

This becomes very tricky as we must define what "love" means. Does it mean that we are to allow people to continue in their sin and never tell them about the wrath of God? That's not what we see in Scripture. Being silent about that is actually unloving. Does it mean treat them with respect and show kindness while simultaneously telling them of God's wrath against their sin and the way to be saved from that wrath? Yes! Here's the often-skipped verses between "God is love" and "we also ought to love one another": 

9 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. 10 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

It is crucial for us to define what the love of God looks like. It isn't the acceptance or the excusing of sins. The way God manifests His love is by sending Jesus. It is through Jesus' death on the cross that we see how much God hates sin. This is called "propitiation"-- God placing our penalty upon His own Son. This is how Scripture defines God's love for humanity. 

With that understanding, when it calls us to "love one another" because "God is love," we must understand and love within this frame of mind. The way we love sinners and tell them about that God loves them is by pointing them to Jesus on the cross. We tell them about His resurrection and how they too can have a new life. 

"But I was born this way." Yes. And I am born the way that I am with my sins. That's why Jesus says we need to be born again. 

God is love, and Love is not God. 

We worship God, who is love. We do not worship Love and make Love a god whom we must bow to.