1 John 4:7. God is love. To know love is to know God. God is the source of all, true love. God's love is called agape love. Agape means unmerited favor. This is the love that God has given to us through Jesus Christ. Though we are sinners and disobedient to God, God still loves us. God reveals His unmerited favor (love) toward us by offering us eternal life through His Son, Jesus Christ. All we must do is accept His love to be the full beneficiaries of His unmerited favor. This agape love that God shows us is also the love that God asks us to show to others. In fact, to fully experience and know God, we must continually exercise unmerited favor (love) in all of our relationships. This includes our relationship to God as well as to others (strangers, friends, neighbors, enemies, and so on). If we live a life of love, we are born of God and we know God (1 John 4:7, “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”).

1 JOHN 4 BIBLE SCRIPTURE 1 John 4:7, “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”

1 John 4:16. God is love. Love is God (1 John 4:16, "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."). The Greek word, agape, defines love as unconditional favor and devotion to the well being of someone. This is the love that God has shown to all of mankind. This is the love that He desires from us of our own free choice. This is the love He desires us to express to all of mankind (Mark 12:30,31, "And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.").

1 JOHN BIBLE SCRIPTURE 1 John 4:16, "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."

1 John 4:8. The key difference between lust and love is that love is God and selfish lust is not of God. Like truth, God is the source of all love (1 John 4:8, "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love"). Anyone without love does not have God in him. Anyone with true "agape" love has God in him. We will only flee the youthful lusts of our flesh when we start to pursue after God's love (2 Timothy 2:22, "Flee also youthful lusts: but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart"). This is when we start to experience the love of God in us, and then there is no room for the lusts of our flesh.

1 JOHN BIBLE SCRIPTURE: 1 John 4:8, "He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love."