Scripture Reading: Psalm 103:11-14, Hosea 11:1-9, John 3:16-17, Romans 5:8, Ephesians 3:14-19, 1 John 4:7-21
“God is love” (1John 4:16). He is always loving—even when He disciplines, even when He enacts judgment. This divine love is infinite, meaning it is bigger than we could ever imagine and more overwhelming than we could fully receive on our own.
We were made for God’s love, so it should not surprise us that, at every turn, the enemy of God’s people chooses to sow doubt at this critical place in our souls. When considering the forbidden fruit in the garden, the serpent told Eve, “God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). In other words, we believe the lie that God is somehow holding out on us, that He does not really love us. It worked with Adam and Eve, and the enemy has been using this same tactic ever since.
We tend to filter what the Bible tells us about the love of God through our experience of love with people who, like us, love imperfectly. The Bible gives us a definition of love in 1 John, imploring us to not define love on our own terms but instead to see love from heaven’s perspective: “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1John 4:10).
Everything God does is loving, and His love is most clearly seen on the cross. God’s love is sacrificial—He gave His Son for the good of those whom He loves. The scars of Christ’s crucifixion are evidence of God’s love (John 20:27), declaring that He did not withhold even His only Son from us, no matter what the enemy may try to tell us.
Written by The She Reads Truth Team
Leave a Reply
76 thoughts on "God Is Loving"
Amen ❤️
I need to read more Hosea, its depiction of love is not only besuited but also spiritually reaffirming!
In 1 John, I keep circling this: “There is no fear in love. Perfect love drives out fear.” It makes me wonder…how much of my anxiety, my second-guessing, my ache for worth, is just the absence of that love reaching my core?
But today, I let it in. Today I believe, even just for a moment, that His love is wider than my self-doubt. That it sees my whole story, all the layers and grief and beauty, and still says: You. I love you. Not because I’m perfect, but because He is. ❤️
❤️
♥️
❤✝️
I was struck by the verses from Hosea today. God took them by the hand and taught them to walk. But they didn’t know He had healed them. How often has God healed me, or saved me from myself, and I haven’t even known? I pray I can be more aware of His love, and when He works in my life and heart.
Good thoughts that made me go deeper! So true!
Amen!
I wish this study was longer! Like a week for each attribute. I want to just sit with Him longer than a day on each amazing attribute. Loving this!
Amen!!
Me too!!!
I’m not good at loving others as God loves. It is something I really have to pay attention to.
Let the final & forever word be Love.
Yours, in the SRT Sisterhood.
God is the Author of Love! Love can only be defined through Him and His actions! We love because God first loved us! ❤️
We must love our brother and sisters in Christ. I love these readings today! ☺️
God is loving! Even when we don’t feel loved. His love is a constant just like the laws of nature He set in place! How I may feel doesn’t change anything! All I have to do is confess how I feel and He will meet me there in my feelings and wrap His arms around me and hold me!
Our God is good and loving and He showed it!
“But God showed His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. Roman’s 5:8
Praying for all. Blessings for all from rainy Oklahoma!
Amen Cheryl! How is your wrist?
His love is constant just like the laws of nature He set in place. So good!
His love for us surpasses our understanding of what love is!
This study is so good and yet everyday I’m struck by how every day the attribute and characteristic of God are just really beyond my human understanding. On the surface level, I know these things to be true but honing in on each one as we are just reminds me that our awesome God is truly indescribable. Today’s devotional really describes this as well and it makes me feel better that I can’t fully comprehend these. It says: “This divine love is infinite, meaning it is bigger than we could ever imagine and more overwhelming than we could fully receive on our own.” I know that God is love, that I am loved and it is of great joy and comfort to know that, but I am also reminded that I can hardly scratch the surface of what that truly means. I am so grateful for God’s amazing, steadfast, pure love that He so freely gives and that because of Him we can in turn love others.
Wendy–you have been able to summarize my thoughts…I know, I believe, and, yet, I am continually reminded that what I know and believe are but specs of dust in the realm of understanding Him.
I totally agree!!!
Absolutely beyond understanding. Help us Lord to grasp how long and wide and deep your love for us is. I have prayed that verse over my kids so many nights.
I have to constantly remind myself that I am to love as God loves, to see as He sees. But how hard that is! Especially when people have hurt or betrayed you. Again – I need to remember, Jesus was constantly hurt, rejected, betrayed and crucified! His response to all of that – love. He is our utmost example. If I am to be holy as He is holy, I too then must love others as He loves them…always a work in progress!
—
I love Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. I regularly pray this for Jeff & myself and for each one of our church people.
—
Sending lots of love to you all – have a blessed day! ❤️
Amen!♥️
Yes, so true Sharon!! We usually want our lives to be lovely and all things good with Jesus or we feel like we are not doing it right! But Jesus—he had to go through the ultimate betrayal, wrongful accusations, pain…and still loved. So, we too, must use affliction as correction, growth, and training. Then chose to LOVE!
Sharon, I love the way you share that you pray the prayers from the Bible.
Our culture has managed to twist the meaning of the word LOVE to mean things that are actually the opposite of LOVE. Sounds a lot like what Satan has been doing from the very beginning of time in the Garden. So why do so many Christians buy into the World’s definition of love? When I get sideways on my thinking of what love means – when the word love is being thrown around in cultural or political debates, I go back to I Cor. 13. I think there is a reason that God made sure we have “the LOVE chapter” in our Bible. It is the definition of what LOVE really means – not the twisted definition that we hear in our World today. And no where in this definition of LOVE from God does it say that LOVE is affirming, love makes everyone feel comfortable, love allows everyone to do whatever they feel is right.
Obviously this is a topic that is close to my heart, but I am reminded of how perfect God’s love is for us and how we can never reflect perfect love like He does. He IS love and we are NOT. To quote one of my favorite podcasters, “We can never out-love God!” Thankful for God’s perfect love for me, a sinner, this morning.
I agree, and passionate about it as well. There is order and laws that are giving for our protection.
Amen, and thank you for sharpening us!
Thank you for this Laura. I resonate with your comments deeply. Too many who claim to be following Jesus translate loving others as accepting their actions instead of standing firm on the Word of God and its truth.
Laura, thank you for sharing your thoughts on God’s love vs the world’s love. I needed to hear that.
Yes. You explained that so well. Appreciate your thoughts❤️
Yes, Laura, Allie Beth Stuckey reminds me of that often. ❤️
.
I can never out-love Him.❤️ I should try to love, though, and sometimes (OFTEN!) that is so. hard.
.
Let us always remember His definition of love, and not the world’s. ❤️
“Dios es amor, la Biblia lo dice.” This was one of the first Spanish songs I learned when I first got saved from 1John 4:8. Just a memory flashback. Maybe when I was younger I may have at one point or another felt I was not loved by God, but I don’t remember and a I don’t want to remember as I know that I know without a doubt I am loved by God no matter what and so are YOU sweet SRT sisters! Love how Emily (right below) put it, “God does not just say He loves us, He shows it.” We may go through hard times either now or later or in the future, but our God is faithful and true to His Word and I believe it. Even when it’s hard and painful, I believe it. Going through it right now, painful (family dynamics) and up coming court hearing has my mind rolling, BUT GOD….my precious Jesus is with me.
Yes, even through our suffering and afflictions, God is loving us in a beautiful way to sharpen, correct, move us out of comfort, make us more loving…patient, kind…slow to anger!
Thank you Jesus for you love! Hugs!
Thank you sweet friend.
Mari V— what memories as soon as I read “Dios es amor, la Biblia lo dice.” I’m from Puerto Rico, and this is one of the first hymns we learned in Sunday school. Now I’m singing it in my head. Have a wonderful day.
Aw….wonderful memories. Thank you for sharing Maria.
So sorry you are going through this, sweet Mari! Praying for you and your family! ❤️
Thank you sweet Lynne, I pray and think you often.
Maria, I’m praying for you and your family.
Thank you Teresa! It means a lot to me!
I was convicted of the charge to love my brothers and sisters. There is so much division in the Church, caused by politics and cancel culture when we don’t see eye to eye. I am guilty and need a heart change to love because I am loved—even on my worst day
Yes, I agree…it’s hard with such division even in the church. But there is so much good and revival as well!! I praise God for that!
Yes me too Karen!!
I love the contrast pointed out here in the devotion (Gen. 3:5/Romans 8:32). When we hear the whisper, “God is holding out on you,” we confidently reply, “This is untrue! God is for me. He has not even spared his own Son to prove it!”
Help us to know and believe your love again today, God. ❤️
“We tend to filter what the Bible tells us about the love of God through our experience of love with people who, like us, love imperfectly.” This is such an important aspect of sharing the gospel that I think we tend to gloss over like a familiar sound bite: God loves you. But it is essential to help unbelievers understand (and believers remember) that the love of God is not like the love we experience with other humans. That His love is constant, never changing, always present. And that even when He is admonishing us, like a good Father does when we deserve it, His love remains, because ultimately, God wants our salvation. Otherwise, He would not be giving humanity an opportunity to turn to Him and follow Him. He could make the second Advent happen at any moment, but He wants to give humanity as a whole, a chance to change its ways. And that is an amazing kind of love we can only experience with God.
God’s love is not hard for me personally to grasp, perhaps because I grew up knowing God loves us, everyone, all the same. And that his love never ends, and sent his son for us. It has always been a fact. But yes, as we age and love is more finicky in our own lives, we can become jaded or fearful of love. We get hurt, and betrayed by those we thought loved us.
I was on my second “perfect” marriage, with a new house and a 2 year old son living the dream when my husband sat me down and said words I never thought I would hear “I am not in love with you and want to leave the marriage.” Wow. Mike drop, basically end of conversation. No one likes to hear those words. But I will always be thankful for the situation that hurt me to the core, because it brought me back to Jesus and profoundly changed my relationship with him! God will never say those words to us, that he doesn’t love us. He may not like our actions and sinful ways, but he loves us. My husband now we occasionally get in moods where he says he doesn’t feel loved. It always amazes me because I “feel” like I show him all the time. But we humans are so up and down and scattered in our emotions. Lord, help us to show love in a profound way that only comes from the Spirit that you put in us! I want to love the ones that don’t feel love and my family that I assume knows I love them. It must be overflowing out of me, and I can only do that through the love of Jesus. When people bug me, help me to look past and know they need love perhaps even more. Thank you for your never ending, never changing love Lord. We really don’t deserve it, but you died for all sinners, the lost and wayward, all humankind.
Be blessed today Sisters and show love in a big way to someone today!
Thank you for sharing your story with us Rhonda! Hearing those words from your first husband must have been devastating. I’m glad to hear that experience drew you back into the Father’s arms & reminded you of His love.
Rhonda, I’m sorry you’re heard those words. And so glad you moved beyond them to realize the perfect, never-ending love of God. After 16 years of marriage. I heard the same thing…”I don’t love you. I haven’t loved you for the last two years.” I let those words destroy me for way too long. I’m so thankful that God’s love truly is never-ending.
Thank you for sharing your experince Rhonda. I’m sorry you had to hear those words. Praise the Lord for His redeeming, healing work in your life❤️
God does not just say He loves us He shows it!
He gave His only son so we could be forgiven and could freely enter into His presence.
Today’s reading brought to mind a song called
I was Loved by Davy Flowers
The chorus says:
“And at the end of my life
When they ask me why I was different
I will testify with all my might
That I was loved
And Jesus, He has always been enough
And I put my trust in an old rugged cross
That tells me I am loved”
So grateful I get to serve a loving God that desires to have a relationship with me!
♥️. Thanks, Emily… me too!! ♥️
App note – the day label is wrong on website and on app (email sent to SRT). To see today’s devo on app, go to Plan Overview for this study and choose the duplicate Day 7 between Grace Day and Weekly Truth
The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell.
It goes beyond the highest star
And reaches to the lowest hell.
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled
And pardoned from his sin.
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made;
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.
by Frederick Lehman
❤️
❤️
Love this hymn and was just recently listening to it. ❤️
This song captured my imagination as a young child in Vacation Bible School…(and I had a wild imagination)!! I still love the imagery today… Thanks for sharing… I’m 78… still have a pretty active imagination! ♥️
♥️
Love this!❤️
Father God,
I want to be rooted in Your love—not in fear, performance, or approval from others. Help me to remember that Your love is steady, even when I’m not. Let it be the foundation of who I am.
When doubts come, remind me I’m fully known and still fully loved by You. Let Your love shape how I see myself and how I treat others today.
Keep me grounded in You.
Amen
Beautiful prayer!
Amen and Amen!
Gods love is….
Vast and compassionate (Psalm 103)
Faithful and merciful despite sin (Hosea 11)
Sacrificial and redemptive (John 3, Romans 5)
Incomprehensibly deep and transformative (Ephesians 3)
Essential to His very nature and to our calling (1 John 4)
God’s love is not just a feeling or action—it’s a core part of who He is. It reaches us in our brokenness, transforms us, and calls us to love others in the same way.
❤️
“We believe the lie that God is somehow holding out on us, that He does not really love us. It worked with Adam and Eve, and the enemy has been using this same tactic ever since.”
.
Why are we so ready to believe this lie over God’s truth (even before sin came into the picture)? I wonder whether part of being made in God’s likeness He placed within us the desire to be loved as only He can, yetwe think that love can come from anything or anyone (the God-shaped hole idea,I guess)
.
TERESA DONLEY – praying for Karen and for wisdom for you in helping her.
.
LISA H – continued prayers for Andrew and his medical team.
.
SUSAN BURLEY – praying Seth continues to make progress and comes out of the coma.
.
RHONDA J – praying Savanah will be drawn to Jesus and His love for her. How us Stacy doing?
Thank you Kelly! Stacey moved back with her husband, so we are just praying she will get on track. She is not real forthcoming so it’s hard to know.
Thank you Kelly!! Seth’s family is meeting with doctor’s this morning to discuss his MRI that was completed yesterday.
In a world where love is bought and sold, exchanged and thrown away just like that… Let me tardy awhile in these bold, and true statements…
.
GOD IS LOVE.
.
EVERYTHING GOD DOES IS LOVING..
.
THE SCARS OF CHRIST’S CRUCIFIXION ARE EVIDENCE OF GODS LOVE..
.
.
If I made the statement that I loved, it would be true, I do love, and to a point, mostly I do, I do, in love, but, there is a part of me, oftentimes, that isn’t aligned in the way it should.. You know, I think for us love is a personal thing and depending on how we have received it over the years, we act accordingly, sometimes citing, I’m not going to be my past.. Truth is, we can be ‘governed’, probably the wrong word, maybe led us a better word, by our experiences.. though we love, it can be limited and for sure, nowhere near God’s love for us..
.
My mother’s father did not come back from the war, and so my grandma married a local man. He did not like my mother and asked my grandma to put her in a Barnados home, which she did.. This place did not show much love.
So.., How does that little girl aged six, interpret this ‘love’.
You can only do what you can, right?
.
BUT GOD..
.
Thankful each day for the love of God, His agape love, from waking up, opening the curtains and seeing the beauty He gives around me, to the smiles of friends and those around, to His Word, to provision to the gift of life.. BUT most, most importantly, the gift of His Son, who, without question or falter, gave His life that I might live in the love of His Father, my Father Gods love..
Forever thankful, Forever loved, Forever His.
.
Thanks be to God..
.
AMEN..
.
Happy Wednesday, you beauties, have a good and God blessed day, whatever that looks like..
Much love,
Tina..
❤️❤️
❤️
Oh, what unimaginable heartbreak and rejection for your poor mama! That kind of pain and rejection can resonate through generations. And I bet it tore your grandmother’s heart, too. I’m so sorry for the brokenness that brought into your family.