“And you say, ‘Well the religions of the world say God is a God of love.’ Don’t you believe that. Buddhism doesn’t believe that God is personal. Neither does Hinduism really. And actually one time I remember having a dialogue, a public dialogue, with the Muslims–Muslims and Christians together–and we talked about God’s love. And the Muslims are willing to say ‘We believe in God being merciful,’ but when I brought up the Christian idea from the Bible, ‘God is our spouse, God is our lover, God is our father, God is our friend, God sheds his love abroad in my heart.’ And our Muslim friends said, ‘That is disrespectful. We would never talk about God that way.'” -Tim Keller, sermon “The God Who Is”
Tag Archives: love of God
“God is Love,” Not “Love is God”
“St John’s saying that God is love has long been balanced in my mind against the remark of a modern author (M. Denis de Rougemont) that ‘love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god’; which of course can be re-stated in the form ‘begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god’. This balance seems to me an indispensable safeguard. If we ignore it the truth that God is love may slyly come to mean for us the converse, that love is God.” -C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
A Barometer for our Spiritual Health
“a man’s spiritual health is exactly proportional to his love for God.” -C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Guilt Can’t Produce the Obedience God Desires, Because It Has Nothing to Do with Love of God
“If love for God isn’t present in our heart, then Godward obedience will be absent in our life.” -Elyse Fitzpatrick, Comforts from the Cross
Hard Situations of Love Reveal the Riches of God’s Love for Us
Nothing Seperates Us
“Whatever suffering we experience will never separate us from the love that God has for us in Jesus Christ.” -Phil Ryken
This Love Brings Peace
“Only when our greatest love is God, a love that we cannot lose even in death, can we face all things with peace.” -Tim Keller
Obeying Simply Because God is Good
“Besides, this [godly] mind restrains itself from sinning, not out of dread of punishment alone; but, because it loves and reveres God as Father, it worships and adores him as Lord. Even if there were no hell, it would shudder at offending him alone.” -John Calvin