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NIV is used unless otherwise noted.



Bitten by the Love Bug


And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 
 1 John 4:16
Have you been bitten by the Love Bug? How about smitten, really smitten? Is God’s kind of love coursing through your veins, affecting every fiber of your being? Are friends and strangers alike aware that you carry the bug? These questions and similar hover mid-air as I am confronted with the essentials of purpose: loving God and loving others so they will know Jesus.

Where to begin? Where does God’s kind of love come from? 1st John teems with love, as do many other scriptures. These three things stand out:      
God is love (1 John 4:8,16): Of all the attributes of God, this is the one we love the most—that He is love. To call it Holy Love perhaps suits it best. The Greek agape intimates a feast full of love. It is safe to say that God’s pores ooze love.
God extended that love to me: 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 (1 John 4:9). Holy love is not something to keep to oneself. So God the Father sent Jesus to the Cross to carve out a niche in the Father heart for you and for me. Holy lovewraps its arms around life and carries it to eternity.
Nothing can separate me from the love of God:  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord(Romans 8:38-39). Does that not give you goose bumps? Nothing, absolutely nothing can separate you from God’s love.
But first things first: key to being bitten by the Love Bug is letting God in: If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God (1 John 4:15). If God lives in me, and God is love, I am bitten. Rejoice then that God loved you first; that He loved you enough to send His Son. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us (1 John 4:16).  
Nancy P
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