No theme in the Bible is more central, more repeated, or more life-altering than the love of God. From Genesis to Revelation, the story of Scripture is ultimately a love story – a God who pursues his people across centuries and continents, who enters the mess of human history in the person of Jesus, who refuses to give up on the people he made and loves.
These quotes from theologians, missionaries, poets, and ordinary believers who have spent their lives in the school of divine love will do something to you if you let them. Read slowly. Let them land.
On the Nature of God’s Love
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” – Augustine of Hippo
“The love of God is not a mild benevolence but a consuming fire.” – P.T. Forsyth
“Being loved by God is the most natural and the most impossible thing in the world. Most natural because that is what we were made for. Most impossible because we know ourselves too well.” – Anonymous
“God’s love is not drawn out by our lovableness but wells up, like an artesian spring, from the depths of his own nature.” – Alexander MacLaren
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16
On the Unconditional Nature of His Love
“Nothing you can do will make God love you more. Nothing you can do will make God love you less.” – Philip Yancey
“God loves you not because of who you are, but because of who he is.” – Anonymous
“The great news is that God’s love for you is not based on your performance, your spiritual condition, or your obedience. It is based entirely on his character.” – Jerry Bridges
“Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.” – Romans 8:38-39
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.” – Jeremiah 31:3
On the Cross as the Proof of His Love
“The cross is the proof that there is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” – Corrie ten Boom
“Jesus didn’t die on the cross because you were good enough. He died because you were worth it.” – Anonymous
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” – Romans 5:8
“The measure of God’s love is that he loved without measure.” – Bernard of Clairvaux
“You don’t have to clean yourself up before you come to God. Come as you are. He loves you as you are – and too much to leave you that way.” – Anonymous
On Experiencing God’s Love
“The most important thing about you is what you believe about God’s love for you.” – Anonymous
“There is nothing small in the service of God. And there is nothing too large for his love.” – Francis de Sales
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” – Ephesians 3:17-18
“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is a lot like being loved by God.” – Timothy Keller
“The love of God is the most overwhelming fact in the universe. If it ever gets into a man, it makes him do things that seem absurd.” – Oswald Chambers
On Letting His Love Change You
“We love because he first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19
“You will never be able to love others as you should until you have been gripped by how much God loves you.” – Anonymous
“A man who is intimate with God will never be intimidated by men.” – Leonard Ravenhill
“The love of God, when it really gets hold of a person, makes them dangerous to the status quo in the best possible way.” – Anonymous
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” – 1 John 3:1
For the Days When God’s Love Feels Far Away
“God’s love is not a fair-weather love. It does not depend on your feelings about it.” – Anonymous
“Feelings come and go, but God’s love remains. Trust the promise more than the feeling.” – Anonymous
“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.” – Isaiah 49:15-16
“God’s love does not fluctuate with my spiritual temperature. That is the whole point of grace.” – Anonymous
“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” – 1 John 4:8
Let these words do what words about love are meant to do – not just inform your theology but soften your heart. The love of God is not an idea to believe correctly. It is a reality to be inhabited, daily, until it changes the way you see everything and everyone around you.
