Love is God.

We have grown quite comfortable saying that “God is Love” and it is rightly so. It has been said that you could take everywhere the name “God” is used in the New Testament and replace it with “Love” and it would be rightly so. But what of the other? What of, “Love is God.”? 

Why is that not said more? If God embodies Love then everywhere you see Love you see the embodiment of God; no? 

Let me state here that I believe in Love. For me, Love is the absolute truth and every good thing that we know on this Earth is a daughter and son of Love (ie. Patience, Joy, Grace, Kindness, Mercy, Tenderness, Affection, etc ((ie you, me, and every living thing on this Earth including the earth itself and the universe in which we all reside))). 

So if Love is God then God is found and seen and felt in kisses of love, the hugs and embraces between friends, lovers, and strangers. Not too many people would disagree with that. What about the love between humans and animals or when animals show affection to the humans that care for them? Is that Love God? What if the lovers are two women or two men? Is their love not also God?

Now before you answer, ask yourself if you are really capable/equipped to determine if there is such a thing as “acceptable love” and “unacceptable love”? And before you answer that, ask yourself if God is Love, then where did you get your notion of “acceptable and unacceptable love”? Does the Bible not say, “let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God (1John 4:7).” Are you quite comfortable determining who is loving and who is not? Are you qualified to make such a call? What about when it said, “Love is patient and kind...it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way...Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things... (Corinthians 13:4-7)?” 

I believe there is Love. Period. End of Story. Either you believe in the divine nature of Love or you don’t. So if you believe that God is Love, then I dare to say that you must also believe that Love is God. And I believe there is only one Love; there is no acceptable or unacceptable love- there is only Love. 

Allow me to bring in an excerpt from my favorite book of CS Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle. In the scene you’re about to read a soldier of Tash (a figure representing Evil) finds himself in the world of Aslan (a figure representing God/Love) aka “heaven” and he doesn’t understand why he, a servant of “the enemy” would find himself in the company of Aslan. 

“Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him... But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, though knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”

So again I say, if God is Love and Love is God then who are we to say what is and is not love and therefore what is or is not God? 

If a Muslim woman loves Allah with all her heart...

If a Buddhist monk loves his fellow man with utter compassion and sincerity...

If a Hindu loves and protects every living thing...

If a Christian loves Jesus...

If a Wiccan loves the Earth and stewards and cares for creation with all their heart...

I believe God is present in every scenario where Love is.  Who’s to say who we will or will not find beyond the gates of death? We can all insist on our way being the right way or we can all desist on demanding our own way and start holding on to the vitality of Love residing in and around us- the very Love that bore us, that conceived our story as one and our story of humanity as a whole. Any one who loves is born of God because God is Love and Love is God. 

Love. Period. End of Story. Except that...Love has no end.

Just a thought