"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.

This is how God showed his love among us; he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us, and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us." (1 John 4;7-12)

In answer to the question: what is God like? John says; "God is love." This being the case; John reasons that his people, if they "know God" and are "born of God," will express that knowledge, that new birth, by loving one other. The love of God is not abstract emotionalism or sentimentalism either. No; the love of God is immensely practical and given to undeserving recipients. So let us not love in word only but in action and in truth and as we do; may we know the completing love of Christ in us.

Grace and peace from Marcus