For Reading and Meditation:
Deuteronomy 7:1-10
When the Bible says God is love, it is saying more than that God loves, or that God is loving, or even that God is lovely; it is saying that love is the power behind everything He does - love is not merely one of His attributes but His whole nature. God is not only the Author of loving acts; He is love in the very core of His Being. Our thoughts of God's love must be built on God's revelation about Himself in the Scriptures, not by projecting our own ideas about love on to Him. Let's focus, therefore, on what the Bible has to say about the God who is love. First, God's love is uninfluenced. By that I mean nothing in us can give rise to it and nothing in us can extinguish it. It is "love for nothing," as someone once put it. The love which we humans have for one another is drawn out of us by something in the object of our love. But God's love is not like that; His love is free, spontaneous, and uncaused. The passage before us today makes clear that there is no reason behind the love of God for His people. If you look for a reason you just won't find one. He loves because – He loves. No man or woman can ever explain why God loves us. To "explain" it would require that He loves us for something outside of Himself, and, as we have seen, He loves us for ourselves alone. And that love has its beginning not in us but in Himself. He is love's source as well as its river.
O God, what security this gives me to know that Your love for me will never be diminished and never be taken away. Help me reflect on this and draw from it the inspiration I need to walk tall and strong through every day. In Jesus' Name. Amen.