More than Love
More Than Love: Rediscovering the Fullness of God
We live in a culture that loves to talk about God's love. And rightfully so—God is love. First John 4:8 makes this abundantly clear: "Everyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love." His love is real, powerful, and life-changing. There are moments when we might feel unloved by everyone else in the world, yet we can still know with certainty that He loves us. That knowledge alone can be enough to keep us going.
But here's the problem: somewhere along the way, we've reduced God to just love.
We've taken the infinite Creator of the universe and shrunk Him down to fit our preferences. We've put Him in a box, cherry-picked our favorite scriptures, and reshaped Him into something safer, softer, and more manageable. We've turned Him into warm, fuzzy feelings and comfort without challenge. We want love without holiness, grace without repentance, and blessing without obedience.
This isn't the God of the Bible. This is a god made in our image.
The Warning Jesus Gave
Jesus addressed this very issue when He quoted the prophet Isaiah: "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God" (Matthew 15:7-9).
Man-made ideas. We've learned who God is by rote—by hearing others tell us—without taking the time to discover Him for ourselves in Scripture. We've accepted secondhand theology without examining what might have been added, subtracted, or distorted along the way.
The same warning appears in Isaiah 29:13: "These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is nothing more than man-made rules learned by rote."
The challenge before us isn't to discover a new God. It's to put Him back where He belongs: at the center.
God Is Holy
When the prophet Isaiah encountered God, he didn't hear angels singing "Love, love, love." Instead, they cried out, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heaven's armies. The whole earth is filled with his glory" (Isaiah 6:3).
Holiness means set apart, morally perfect, completely other. God doesn't adjust His holiness to fit our culture. He doesn't lower His standards to make us comfortable. Instead, He raises us by grace.
And here's the crucial distinction: grace doesn't excuse sin. Grace empowers freedom from it.
God's love is a holy love. He doesn't overlook sin; He deals with it. A God who is love but not holy isn't the God of Scripture. And a God who is holy but not love would leave us hopeless. But the true God is both—perfectly holy and perfectly loving.
We want a God who loves us without requiring us to change. But holiness means that God's love is powerful enough to confront, correct, and cleanse us. Real love doesn't cancel holiness. Real grace doesn't erase truth. Real mercy doesn't ignore sin—it paid for it at the cross.
If God were only love, there would be no cross. The cross exists because love and holiness met there.
The Purpose of Tribulation
This brings us to a tension that the apostle Paul explains in Romans 5:3: "We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance."
Who glories in pressure? Who celebrates suffering? Only someone who truly trusts the One who is in control.
Paul gives us a chain reaction: tribulation produces patience, patience produces experience, and experience produces hope. And Romans 5:5 tells us that "hope will not lead to disappointment, for we know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love."
Hope doesn't disappoint because God does not fail. Our hope is anchored in God's love, not in our circumstances.
If we never face pressure, we stay spiritually soft. Tribulation doesn't destroy us—it forms us. But it only forms us properly if God is who He says He is.
The Alpha and Omega
God introduces Himself clearly in Revelation 1:8: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord God. I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come, the Almighty One."
Alpha—the beginning. Before anything existed, He is.
Omega—the end. When everything else is finished, He is still God.
This means your suffering didn't start without purpose. Your story will not end without redemption. Nothing catches God off guard. He doesn't enter history late trying to clean up a mess. He stands outside of time, sovereign over beginnings, endings, and every moment in between—right down to this very minute.
Because God stands at the beginning and the end, none of your experience is wasted. Your past doesn't disqualify you because He was there. Your present isn't wasted because He's working. Your future isn't uncertain because He already stands at the end of it.
The I Am
When Moses asked God who he should say sent him, God replied, "I am who I am" (Exodus 3:14). Not "I was," not "I will be," but "I am."
God didn't give a description. He gave a declaration of being.
Centuries later, Jesus made an astonishing claim: "I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I am" (John 8:58). This wasn't metaphor. Jesus was claiming deity—declaring Himself to be the eternal God.
He is the I Am—your provider, your healer, your peace, your salvation. If He is the I Am, He gets to define reality. Not us.
Recentering Your Life
Think of your life like the tires on a car. When tires aren't balanced and centered properly, you experience a constant thumping. But when everything is aligned and centered, it's smooth sailing.
When God is off-center in your life, your faith becomes fragile. Worship becomes performance. Obedience becomes optional. Truth becomes offensive.
But when God is at the center, your suffering gains purpose. Your hope becomes unshakable. Your life is transformed—not just inspired.
The solution isn't to add God to the middle of your life. It's to build everything around Him. You don't fit God into your story. Your story fits into His.
Stop reducing God to what makes you comfortable. Stop reshaping Him to match your preferences. Recenter your life around who He really is: holy, sovereign, the Alpha and Omega, the great I Am.
Get in your Bible. Spend time in prayer. Worship until breakthrough comes. Let Him recalibrate your life and put everything back in proper alignment.
Because when God is centered, everything else falls into place.
We live in a culture that loves to talk about God's love. And rightfully so—God is love. First John 4:8 makes this abundantly clear: "Everyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love." His love is real, powerful, and life-changing. There are moments when we might feel unloved by everyone else in the world, yet we can still know with certainty that He loves us. That knowledge alone can be enough to keep us going.
But here's the problem: somewhere along the way, we've reduced God to just love.
We've taken the infinite Creator of the universe and shrunk Him down to fit our preferences. We've put Him in a box, cherry-picked our favorite scriptures, and reshaped Him into something safer, softer, and more manageable. We've turned Him into warm, fuzzy feelings and comfort without challenge. We want love without holiness, grace without repentance, and blessing without obedience.
This isn't the God of the Bible. This is a god made in our image.
The Warning Jesus Gave
Jesus addressed this very issue when He quoted the prophet Isaiah: "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God" (Matthew 15:7-9).
Man-made ideas. We've learned who God is by rote—by hearing others tell us—without taking the time to discover Him for ourselves in Scripture. We've accepted secondhand theology without examining what might have been added, subtracted, or distorted along the way.
The same warning appears in Isaiah 29:13: "These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, and their worship of me is nothing more than man-made rules learned by rote."
The challenge before us isn't to discover a new God. It's to put Him back where He belongs: at the center.
God Is Holy
When the prophet Isaiah encountered God, he didn't hear angels singing "Love, love, love." Instead, they cried out, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of heaven's armies. The whole earth is filled with his glory" (Isaiah 6:3).
Holiness means set apart, morally perfect, completely other. God doesn't adjust His holiness to fit our culture. He doesn't lower His standards to make us comfortable. Instead, He raises us by grace.
And here's the crucial distinction: grace doesn't excuse sin. Grace empowers freedom from it.
God's love is a holy love. He doesn't overlook sin; He deals with it. A God who is love but not holy isn't the God of Scripture. And a God who is holy but not love would leave us hopeless. But the true God is both—perfectly holy and perfectly loving.
We want a God who loves us without requiring us to change. But holiness means that God's love is powerful enough to confront, correct, and cleanse us. Real love doesn't cancel holiness. Real grace doesn't erase truth. Real mercy doesn't ignore sin—it paid for it at the cross.
If God were only love, there would be no cross. The cross exists because love and holiness met there.
The Purpose of Tribulation
This brings us to a tension that the apostle Paul explains in Romans 5:3: "We can rejoice too when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance."
Who glories in pressure? Who celebrates suffering? Only someone who truly trusts the One who is in control.
Paul gives us a chain reaction: tribulation produces patience, patience produces experience, and experience produces hope. And Romans 5:5 tells us that "hope will not lead to disappointment, for we know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love."
Hope doesn't disappoint because God does not fail. Our hope is anchored in God's love, not in our circumstances.
If we never face pressure, we stay spiritually soft. Tribulation doesn't destroy us—it forms us. But it only forms us properly if God is who He says He is.
The Alpha and Omega
God introduces Himself clearly in Revelation 1:8: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord God. I am the one who is, who always was, and who is still to come, the Almighty One."
Alpha—the beginning. Before anything existed, He is.
Omega—the end. When everything else is finished, He is still God.
This means your suffering didn't start without purpose. Your story will not end without redemption. Nothing catches God off guard. He doesn't enter history late trying to clean up a mess. He stands outside of time, sovereign over beginnings, endings, and every moment in between—right down to this very minute.
Because God stands at the beginning and the end, none of your experience is wasted. Your past doesn't disqualify you because He was there. Your present isn't wasted because He's working. Your future isn't uncertain because He already stands at the end of it.
The I Am
When Moses asked God who he should say sent him, God replied, "I am who I am" (Exodus 3:14). Not "I was," not "I will be," but "I am."
God didn't give a description. He gave a declaration of being.
Centuries later, Jesus made an astonishing claim: "I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I am" (John 8:58). This wasn't metaphor. Jesus was claiming deity—declaring Himself to be the eternal God.
He is the I Am—your provider, your healer, your peace, your salvation. If He is the I Am, He gets to define reality. Not us.
Recentering Your Life
Think of your life like the tires on a car. When tires aren't balanced and centered properly, you experience a constant thumping. But when everything is aligned and centered, it's smooth sailing.
When God is off-center in your life, your faith becomes fragile. Worship becomes performance. Obedience becomes optional. Truth becomes offensive.
But when God is at the center, your suffering gains purpose. Your hope becomes unshakable. Your life is transformed—not just inspired.
The solution isn't to add God to the middle of your life. It's to build everything around Him. You don't fit God into your story. Your story fits into His.
Stop reducing God to what makes you comfortable. Stop reshaping Him to match your preferences. Recenter your life around who He really is: holy, sovereign, the Alpha and Omega, the great I Am.
Get in your Bible. Spend time in prayer. Worship until breakthrough comes. Let Him recalibrate your life and put everything back in proper alignment.
Because when God is centered, everything else falls into place.
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