God is Love?

I thought our discussion last week was really good. Something said to me later provoked this post. To paraphrase, "It's hard to think about God as love in His fundamental nature." The gist of that statement and what followed, if I understood correctly, is that this is such an abstract idea we can't really process it. Somewhat like trying to imagine the size of the universe.

In my reading last week, I bumped into an exercise I have seen before. Perhaps it's one way of getting closer to knowing God as love.

Start with a portion of 1 Corinthians 13. We usually hear this at weddings, and while a marriage is certainly a place where agape love must be present for any chance of success, Paul was talking about the members of the church community in Corinth loving one another. Here's a good section:

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a)

If God is love, then we should also be able to substitute a reference to Him for all the references to love in this passage. Transformed, it would read like this:

God is patient, God is kind. He does not envy, He does not boast, He is not proud. God
is not rude, He is not self-seeking, He is not easily angered, and He keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
God always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
God never fails.

If we read and reflect on this transformed passage for a few days, I'm certain we will have a fuller understanding of who God is according to John -- God is love.