Is God only Love?

I have been feeling lately like my ideas of God have been shifting and would love some feedback on what ya'll think, is it unbiblical, misguied, insufficient or right on?

I believe God is Love. That when you love someone you wont want to kill them, hurt them, be jealous of them, walk past them when they are starving/freezing, say nasty things to them and so on. When you love you fill all the commandments Jesus said to live a good life.
When you love others you are sharing God in that relationship, whether friend to friend, friend to lover or even friend to stranger.
I believe that true love is unconditional and selfless. Therefore there are those who do not love, or only love conditionally only so it will benefit themselves. So when this era of the world is over and "heaven" comes down to this earth there will be those who do not join us as they do not/have not experienced and shared true selfless and unconditional love and therefore cannot live among those who can because Love is such an incredible force - this is what I guess is called judging those who have sinned and sending them to hell (which is just another way of saying they dont live in love".
Jesus is the guy to follow because he was a true embodiment of Love. When he was killed by the Romans he "flicked a switch" (i dont really know how to say it) that started the love fest, he taught people how to overcome the empire and live in a loving way that would lead to enlightenment or true happiness and that gift was able to be taught to anyone anywhere, that was his ultimate gift and so we should praise and thank him for it.
I have been having problems with all of this "father in the sky" "He will..." "trust in the Lord" stuff as I simply believe God is Love and find this imagery of a guy sitting in the sky, even if he is a kind father and friend, offputting. God is incredible, magical, wonderful Love and I don't need to imagine this "lifeforce" if you will, as a human eing just so I can relate to him.

So what do you think? Am I hitting the nail on the head or a little/lot misguided? I am struggling as people in my church don't seem to see it this way and I don't have too many people I can talk to about my shifting views

 

Whatever you believe is absolutely your choice! My own beliefs are in the universe
& nature, and similarly in the existence of love and energy. I don't believe in the little man up in the sky, and never have.

It isn't really a matter of hitting the nail on the head or being misguided in regard to spirituality! You are describing your straying from the conventional Church's ideas. There is never any wrong or right with spirituality as a whole, though your Church friends may say differently because your ideas do not match theirs.

All the love to you though, I wish you all the luck on your journey <3

 

Nobody knows for sure what God is. If you feel different about this subject than the people in your church there is no reason why you should conform to their beliefs and not have your own personal thoughts on this (even if you're not entirely sure what they are). Faith remains always personal in the end anyway.

 

Thank you both for encouraging me to believe in what I believe and feel is right. I do respect the traditions and knowledge passed down for thousands of years regarding God but it is encouraging to hear that it is ok to have my own beliefs, it's not something I get told or encouraged with in my local church community. Lots of love to you both!

 

The Christian God is also vengeful and jealous...
Even the Bible says so.

 

God is wrath and order

 

See, it is very subjective!

 

Whoever does not know love does not know God, for God is love.

1 john 4:8

 

God is love but love is not God.

 

Remember in that Tyler perry movie when that old bitch was like "child don't u know that he's a jealous god"

 

Yes, God is love, but love is everything . . . EVERYTHING!

 

It's a metaphor, like saying; "My love is a red rose." If you take that literally, it sounds kinky. Love is the central ethical value of Christianity, and certainly an important attribute of God. But I think most of us would add other attributes as well, including creator, designer, etc. The Qur'an lists 99 attributes.

 

God is love. Love is the the spider trapping and eating the fly.

 

I was always taught that when they said "he is a jealous God" that it means that "He" doesnt want you worshipping other "Gods" like greed and money and things but to just follow him. Not in the way we see jealousy I guess.

It's kind of hard though recently, because I am having trouble with referring to "God" as He or Lord and all those "religousy" words, I feel like its just language people use to imagine their God as a guy/father figure/friend in the sky. I can't get past it which makes me feel so silly when I get together with my church friends and pray and whatnot. I just want people to Love, but I guess people see that as too simple. Why do people try to make God so complicated??

 

To me truly loving someone (as opposed to infatuation or lust) proves God's existence and yes we should all love each other.

I do not however believe in 'Heaven'. Perhaps some part of us survives death but I think when we are dead we cease to exist as individuals (except in the memories of those whose lives we touched).

 

yeah i want to believe God is love and caring for other humans.just my beliefs

 

Actually, I think they are trying to simplify God when they use such titles. Anyway that silly feeling when we're referring to god as the bearded man on a cloud/guy/father figure/lord is very recognizable! It doesn't trouble me no more somehow but it used to aggrivate me.

 

God is not some bearded guy in the sky. Since God is a Spirit Being he has no physical description. So the "physical" descriptions are to describe who He is not what He looks like. The Biblical titles and descriptions of him have symbolic meanings about who God is.

 

his most outward expression of love was how an atonement was set in place for sin..he wants us to save ourselves and that is love.

 

I think the idea of sin is just to keep us "in line" perhaps, as a society, there needs to be some kind of order to ensure that as a majority people are kept safe, however people have taken that and used it as a power trip, or to extremis, or in a way to judge others as "right" or "wrong".
I was taught to believe that sin is just turning away from God, so the whole "wipe your slate clean" was just that when you turned back to God (or back to loving others selflessly) then you cease to be doing something that is harmful to that person. I believe that with each choice we make, whether on how to treat someone, or to do something, that we choose who we are, we constantly evolve and so if we choose to stop hurting others we choose to be a more loving person, therefore at that moment we are a loving person (in simple terms). I am struggling with reconciling the death of Jesus to these new ideas and conceptions I am having though.

Was he just a guy who was a true embodiment of what it means to be a lover of people his whole life long, so that when he died he showed us the way to overcome "sin" (hatred and the antihesis of love) and therefore we are saved as we now have the knowledge to overcome hate? Or is there way more to it? Was he actually of the power force that is God/Love and its way more spiritual than I am seeing? (the whole "you can only come to heaven through Jesus thing"???)