God is Love: The Incomprehensibility of Divine Love

Sunday Awe

“Love is patient, love is kind; it is not envious.

Love does not brag; it is not arrogant.

It is not rude; it is not self-serving; it is not easily angered or resentful.

It does not rejoice in injustice, but rejoices in the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

(1 Corinthians 13:4-8a, 13 NET)

Everything that love is, God is; for God is love (1 John 4:16). To say, “God is love” is much more than a simple statement of fact, like “Grass is green.” It is personal and intimate, meaning “God loves me.” As we will explore this week, God’s love is unconditional, unfathomable, unending, and transformational.

This means that God loves me unconditionally, beyond anything I can grasp, without limit or end. Sometimes, it helps to personalize a passage like the one above:

“God is patient and kind toward me, never arrogant or overbearing. God does not harbor anger or resentment toward me. God is for me, not against me, believing, bearing, and hoping for all good things for me. God’s love for me never ends.”

Some people often feel that God is against them. This perception can stem from various sources. They may have experienced childhood trauma and felt unloved by their parents, leading them to question, “If my own parents don’t love me, how can a Divine Parent love me?” Others may face hardships that cause them to doubt God’s love, thinking, “If God allowed this in my life, He must not love me.” Additionally, some are taught a distorted view of God as an angry tyrant eager to punish them for their sins. Or, it may be more subtle thoughts like, “Yes, I know that God loves me, but I don’t think He really likes me. I disappoint Him so often.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Here is how Paul expressed it:

“If God is for us, who can be against us? … Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will trouble, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? … No, in all these things we have complete victory through Him who loved us! For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31, 35, 37-39 NET).

There is no sin, no thought, no action larger or greater than the love of God. There is nothing any of us can ever do that can separate us from God or God’s love (they are the same thing). We may be guilty of wrongdoing, but that does not diminish God’s love for us in the least.

This theme of unconditional love is common among those who have had near-death experiences (NDEs). Almost universally, they describe experiencing unconditional love beyond anything they can articulate. Paul had visions and may have had an NDE himself. He certainly had an experiential understanding of the immensity of God’s love for us and prayed that others would come to grasp that love:

“I pray that…because you have been rooted and grounded in love, you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.” (Ephesians 3:16-19 NET)

I did not intend to quote the Apostle Paul so often in this reflection, but he wrote so articulately and gracefully about love. This message often gets lost in performance-based religion. Jesus illustrated it well in the parable of the prodigal son. After squandering wealth and reputation, as he returned home, his father rushed out, embraced him, and welcomed him back without hesitation or condition.

Remember, God loves you just as you are, with all your faults, failures, blemishes, and weaknesses. There is nothing you can do to earn or lose God’s love for you. It is inclusive, accepting, unconditional, healing, and unending. You may not always feel God’s love, but it is always there, surrounding you and within you.

Monday Awe: Love as the Essence of God

• Henri Nouwen: “God is love, and it is through this love that we find our true selves.” (The Return of the Prodigal Son)
• Catherine of Siena: “The fire of God’s love burns without consuming, filling the soul with light.” (The Dialogue of Divine Providence)
• Simone Weil: “To love God is to know that God alone is love.” (Gravity and Grace)
• Odes of Solomon 8:11: “He wrapped me in a garment of love, and His love brought me to life.”
• 1 John 4:16: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” (NIV)

Question to Ponder: What does it mean to me that God is love?

Action to Take: Meditate or contemplate on 1 John 3:16.

Tuesday Awe: The Depth of God’s Love

• St. Augustine: “God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” (Confessions)
• Julian of Norwich: “I saw that love was God’s meaning. Who showed it to me? Love.” (Revelations of Divine Love)
• Thomas Merton: “The root of all creation is love, for it is through love that God made the world.” (No Man Is an Island)
• Rumi: “Love is the bridge between you and everything.” (The Essential Rumi)
• Bhagavad Gita 12:20: “Those who are filled with love, who see Me in all things, and love all beings, are closest to Me.”
• Ephesians 3:18-19: “May you have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.” (NIV)

Question to Ponder: How does experiencing God’s love help you understand its depth?

Action to Take: Write a prayer thanking God for loving you and asking to love others as you are loved by God.

Wednesday Awe: The Unconditional Love of God

• St. Francis de Sales: “The measure of love is to love without measure.” (Introduction to the Devout Life)
• Thomas Aquinas: “God loves all things because they are His creations.” (Summa Theologica)
• Rabindranath Tagore: “God’s love is not a reward but a gift, flowing freely to all.” (Gitanjali)
• John Wesley: “The love of God is the love that knows no end, no limits, and no conditions.” (Sermons)
• Tao Te Ching 67: “I have three treasures: compassion, simplicity, and love. With love, all things are possible.”
• Romans 8:38-39: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor heavenly rulers, nor things that are present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God. (NET)

Question to Ponder: If God is love and nothing can separate you from God’s love, then what can you do to separate you from God?

Action to Take: Reflect on any conditions you place on love and ask God to help you love unconditionally.

Thursday Awe: Love Manifested in Creation

• St. Irenaeus: “The love of God is the life of creation, binding all things together.” (Against Heresies)
• St. Hildegard of Bingen: “The world is infused with God’s love, a living song of His heart.” (Scivias)
• Rumi: “The entire cosmos is filled with love, for it is the heart of creation.” (The Essential Rumi)
• T.S. Eliot: “The fire and the rose are one—love’s union at the heart of all being.” (Four Quartets)
• Rig Veda 10.191.3: “May love and unity pervade all things, as it does in the mind of the Creator.”
• Psalm 145:9: “The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.” (NIV)

Question to Ponder: How does God’s love in creation inspire you to care for the world?

Action to Take: Spend time reflecting on creation and how you can better care for it as an act of love.

Friday Awe: The Transforming Power of Love

• C.S. Lewis: “To love at all is to be vulnerable, for love transforms and enlarges the heart.” (The Four Loves)
• St. John Chrysostom: “Love transforms all things into beauty, for it is the presence of God.” (Homilies on Corinthians)
• Simone Weil: “To be rooted in love is to be transformed by the eternal.” (Waiting for God)
• G.K. Chesterton: “Love looks not with the eyes but with the heart, and it makes all things new.” (Orthodoxy)
• Bhagavad Gita 6:29: “The one who is filled with love sees all beings as the same and rests in the divine.”
• 1 Corinthians 13:13: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (NIV)

Question to Ponder: How does knowing that God loves you, transformed you?

Action to Take: Write down how you’ve been changed by God’s love and thank God for that transformation.

Saturday Awe: God is Love: The Incomprehensibility of Divine Love

• Odes of Solomon 8:11: “He wrapped me in a garment of love, and His love brought me to life.”
• Rumi: “The entire cosmos is filled with love, for it is the heart of creation.” (The Essential Rumi)
• St. John Chrysostom: “Love transforms all things into beauty, for it is the presence of God.” (Homilies on Corinthians)
• Bhagavad Gita 6:29: “The one who is filled with love sees all beings as the same and rests in the divine.”
• 1 John 4:16: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” (NIV)

Prayer: May the eyes of my heart be opened to see the incomprehensible love of God and may I be an instrument of this love to those around me.