Gateway Church

Helping people explore God and become a unified community of growing, multiplying Christ-followers.

God Is Love

May 11, 2025
Download Digging Deeper

MAY 11

GOD IS LOVE

God’s love is not just a feeling or an abstract concept; it is who He is. John tells us, “God is love.” The real, genuine love that we are called to extend to others flows directly from the love God has shown us through Jesus Christ. This love isn’t about mere emotion—it is sacrificial, selfless, and transformative.

Work through the following questions and scriptures on your own or get together with your group, spiritual running partners, or family to talk through what you are learning.  

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

   1.  As hard as it may sound, share a moment in your life (as far back as you can remember) where you know you felt loved?

   2.   On Sunday we hit on 4 major types of love (from the Greeks): romantic love (eros), familial love (storge), friendship love (philia) and selfless love (agape).  Which one of these seems to be more natural for you to lean in to, and which one is not so natural?

   3.  Read I John 4:7-21 aloud in 3 sections (Ask each of the questions below for each section) – Section 1 – 1 John 4:7-10  – Section 2 – 1 John 4:11 – 16  – Section 3 – 1 John 4:17-21.

Make some observations about this passage (What does the text say?):

  • What stands out to you?
  • What do you notice and what are you curious about?

Make some interpretations (What does the passage mean?)

  • What do you learn about God in this passage?
  • What do we learn about the love of God in this passage?
  • How is being reborn critical to our understanding and living in God’s love? (read John 3:2-7)

Now make some applications (what’s my response?)

  • How are you encouraged, challenged, or convicted by this passage?
  • How can you tell when you are loving from your own version of love, and when you love from an overflow of God’s love?  

KEY SCRIPTURE

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.This is how we know that we live in him  and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.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 them.This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.We love because he first loved us.Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.  

PRAYER

Use I John 4:7- 10 as outline to pray:

As a group we’re going to re-read verse by verse the first section of today’s passage, and after each verse we’re going to pray that verse out loud:

7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 

For example – God, thank you that we are your beloved children, and that you invite us into the practice of emanating love to others.  You trust enough to represent you, and that is a high honor, because all love comes from you.  This does not come natural to us, but when we are born by water and your spirit, we get to know you.  We have access to an intimate knowledge of you that compels us to act like you act, to be loving. 

8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 

9 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.                                                                                                                                                           10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our  sins.

PRACTICE

   1.  Read today’s passage again this week (1 John 4:7-21) –  This time, all by yourself, sit with the passage, and ask yourself what part of the passage brings tension and questions.  Sit with it, surrender it, and then lean into the parts that may be uncomfortable.  Why is this uncomfortable, what is something I can do to combat this tension, and not run from it?

   2.  Drive out fear – verse 18 clearly states that there is no fear in love, and God’s perfect love drives out fear.What are you currently facing, or have faced in the past, that conjures up a sense of fear? In that state of fear, we cannot fully receive the love of God, so write down what causes you to be fearful, own it, acknowledge it, and then surrender it.