31 Days of Love Letters: Searching Scripture for How God Loves

Sometimes I want to erase everything I know about God that I learned from church, other Christians, Christian culture, culture in general, movies, songs, and t-shirts. I want to fill that blank slate with rich biblical truth, with what is actually in the Bible and what it actually says about God. I fear that I am too often unaware of how He actually is. I have become especially interested in how He loves.

So I went on an exploration for God in the Bible, inspired by A.W. Tozer's words in The Pursuit of God:

"For it is not mere words that nourish the soul, but God Himself, and unless and until the hearers [or readers] find God in personal experience they are not the better for having heard [or read] the truth. The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts."

As I read, I asked, “What does this tell me about God and who He is?” I looked for clues about His character, His likes, His dislikes, His way of acting. I didn't look for rules, principles, or bullet points, but for the living, feeling, thinking, acting Person of God.

To my delight, I found that the mute, bleak, boring, incomprehensible Bible I plod through each day suddenly exploded with color, life, meaning, and even deeper wells to explore. God revealed Himself to be One with dimension and complexity and beauty and power and gentleness. And, most of all, One who loves.

Do you wonder how God really is too? Do you read books filled with definitive statements about God and wonder if He is really like that? Join me in my exploration through "31 Days of Love Letters: Searching Scripture for How God Loves". The book guides your own search for facets of God’s love through a devotional reading on 31 different books of the Bible. Each reading begins and ends with passages of Scripture for reflection and response.

In 31 Days of Love Letters, you will discover that:

•God loves.
•God loves you personally.
•God's love is plastered all over the Bible, even in the little-read or little-understood parts.
•Although mysterious, God’s love is not a complete mystery. It is available to everyone who seeks Him.

As we explore the Bible, book-by-book, we are not looking for knowledge or special insight or anything else other than God Himself. We are looking for the Person of God. We are looking for how He loves so that we can love like Him. We are looking to know Him. Because we can! Jeremiah 29:12–13 says, “Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”

The books of the Bible included in the devotional are: Proverbs, 1 John, John, 1 Kings, Lamentations, 1 Peter, Ruth, Jeremiah, 2 Thessalonians, Colossians, Nehemiah, 2 Samuel, Hebrews, Matthew, Obadiah, Habakkuk, 1 Chronicles, Ecclesiastes, Revelation, 2 Chronicles, Psalms, Esther, Job, Leviticus, 1 Thessalonians, Mark, Ezra, 1 Corinthians, Exodus, James, and Philemon.