Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

1 John 4:7, 8.

John says it as simple as can be, “God is love.”  He uses one of the four Greek words that mean love at this point, agape.  Other ones describe family ties, friendship or ethnic ties or erotic relationships.  These are the loves that hold people together.  John does not discount those loves but emphasizes the greatest of loves, the love that wishes the welfare of another and that results in self-giving for the other or others.  It is called agape and is at the heart of our relationship with God.

As I think about it, I love my wife.  That I know. I also love my children, a more comprehensive love.  Then I love my culture, my people, so to speak.  That is an even more expanded love.  All of these loves are enjoyed by all people everywhere.  They are part of being human.  That love is the glue that holds human beings together, for their individual good and the common good.

John is not writing about those kinds of love.  He speaks about a love that loves beyond what is expected, it is called agape.  It is unique because, he notes, it comes from God.  It is not a normal human trait.  It is God-like and God-given.  It acts like God does.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.  Agape is different from normal human love that is common to mankind.  It comes from God and is a virtue that God imparts in us when we are “born of God.”  That requires a new birth, a new beginning, a new heart.  John asserts that people who exhibit agape love are showing by their lives the love of God, a love that surprises, that reaches out, that counts others as very important.

John reminds us that agape love comes from God.  It expresses the love of God.  It cannot be imitated or simply copied.  It is the result of God being powerful in us.  Agape comes from God!  This is such a profound reality that I, along with all grateful saints, accept it by faith, the understanding often comes later.  It less important to understand it, however, than to actually experience it!