(1 Jo) 4:7-10 CJB “Beloved friends, let us love one another; because love is from God; and everyone who loves has God as his Father and knows God. Those who do not love, do not know God; because God is love. Here is how God showed his love among us: God sent his only Son into the world, so that through him we might have life. Here is what love is: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the kapparah for our sins.”

God defines love. That simple truth sits at the center of one of the greatest moral disagreements in our culture. Everyone talks about love, but we don’t all mean the same thing when we use the word.

Our culture increasingly defines love as accepting and affirming whatever another person believes about himself or chooses for himself. According to this understanding, loving someone means allowing—and often encouraging—that person to express whatever desires or beliefs feel authentic.

Therefore, disagreement can easily become labeled as hate.

But John gives Christians an entirely different starting point.

“God is love.”

We don’t begin with ourselves and then define love according to our desires.

We begin with God.

God Defines Love by Who He Is

John doesn’t merely tell us that God loves.

He tells us:

“God is love.”

Therefore, we cannot separate love from God’s character.

Whatever is holy, righteous, good, and true in God must also shape our understanding of love.

Love cannot require us to celebrate what God calls evil.

Neither can love encourage someone to continue down a path that God says leads toward destruction.

Instead, true love seeks what is ultimately good for another person as God defines good.

That distinction matters.

If I define what is good for myself, love must affirm me.

If God defines what is good, love must direct me toward Him.

And because God defines love, His character—not my feelings—becomes the standard.

The Cross Shows Us What Love Looks Like

John doesn’t leave love as an abstract theological idea.

He points us to an event:

“God sent his only Son into the world, so that through him we might have life.”

Then John becomes even more specific:

“Here is what love is…”

Pay attention to what follows.

Not acceptance.

Not affirmation.

Not allowing everyone to determine his own truth.

Sacrifice.

God saw humanity separated from Him by sin, and He didn’t leave us there.

Instead, He acted.

The Father sent His Son. Jesus gave Himself as the kapparah—the atoning sacrifice—for our sins.

God’s love moved toward broken people to rescue and restore them.

That’s biblical love.

True Love Seeks God’s Best for Someone

Imagine a man with a serious heart condition lying on an operating table.

The surgeon approaches him with a knife.

The patient doesn’t want his chest cut open. It will hurt. Recovery will be difficult. If the patient’s immediate comfort determined what was loving, the surgeon would put down the knife and walk away.

But that wouldn’t be love.

The surgeon acts because restoring the patient’s health requires something painful.

Likewise, genuine love sometimes says things people don’t want to hear.

Sometimes love confronts.

Sometimes love corrects.

Sometimes love warns.

Sometimes love sacrifices.

Sometimes love suffers.

However, biblical love never does these things because it enjoys causing pain. It does them because true love seeks another person’s genuine good.

And God alone ultimately defines what that good is.

Love Is Not the Same as Approval

This distinction has become increasingly important.

I can love you without approving everything you believe.

In fact, there may be times when love requires me to disagree with you.

Jesus demonstrates this perfectly.

He showed extraordinary compassion toward sinners while never redefining sin to make people comfortable.

He welcomed people others rejected.

He showed mercy.

He forgave.

He served.

He sacrificed Himself.

Yet He also called people to repent, believe, obey, and follow Him.

Jesus didn’t love people by leaving them exactly as He found them.

His love called them toward life.

So should ours.

God Defines Love, Not Our Desires

Sin has distorted more than our behavior. It has also distorted our desires and judgment.

That’s why “I feel this is loving” can never become the Christian’s ultimate moral standard.

Our feelings need God’s truth just as much as our actions do.

Therefore, God’s Word must teach us how to love.

God’s Spirit uses God’s Word to increasingly make God’s children look like God’s Son.

That includes transforming how we love.

As we know God better, we should love Him more and obey Him more. Consequently, His definition of love increasingly replaces our own.

Our character begins reflecting His love.

Our commitment leads us to love when loving becomes costly.

Our commission sends us toward people who need the life found in Jesus Christ.

Love Gives What Is Good, Even When It Costs

Look again at God’s definition: “Here is what love is: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son…”

Love takes initiative.

Love gives.

Love serves.

Love sacrifices.

Love seeks another person’s good.

And sometimes love suffers to accomplish that good.

God didn’t demonstrate His love by telling sinful humanity, “Whatever you choose is fine with Me.”

He demonstrated His love by doing what was necessary to save us from our sin.

The cross tells us simultaneously:

You are deeply loved.

And:

Your sin is deadly serious.

If sin didn’t matter, the cross wouldn’t have been necessary.

But because God loved us, He acted to rescue us.

That’s love.

We Can’t Redefine What God Is

Our culture will continue debating the meaning of love because we’re starting with different authorities.

If the individual is the highest authority, then love eventually becomes whatever makes the individual feel accepted.

But if God is love, then God has already established the standard.

Therefore, Christians shouldn’t allow culture to redefine one of the central characteristics of God.

We must love people deeply.

We should demonstrate compassion.

We should serve sacrificially.

We should speak graciously.

We should forgive freely.

Yet we must also tell the truth.

True love doesn’t help someone move farther from God while calling it kindness.

True love seeks another person’s ultimate good according to the wisdom, character, and truth of the God who created him.

God defines love.

Our responsibility is to know Him well enough that we increasingly learn to love what He loves, love how He loves, and love whom He loves.

And He loved us enough to give us His Son.

Run Today’s Play

Ask, am I loving people according to what makes them comfortable—or according to what God says is ultimately good for them?

Then ask God to show you where your definition of love has been shaped more by culture, personal feelings, or fear of people’s opinions than by His Word.

Love someone today as Jesus would—with both grace and truth, seeking their genuine good even when doing so costs you something.

Men, don’t let the world teach you how to define something that originates in God.

Know God better. Love Him more. Obey Him more. Then love others the way He loves us.