The chapter "God is Love" was just so good that I wanted to put a big chunk of it up here. Here goes.
"... Come to a cowshed in the Middle East in 4 BC. Love is not a fuzzy feeling, but a self-giving commitment that results in action... It involved sending the Son, from his position in heavenly glory and sinless perfection, to earth, to become flesh. ... It involved the Son laying aside his majesty and becoming an infant who fell over and vomited and soiled his nappy and grazed his knees. It involved walking a mile in our shoes, facing temptation of all kinds, misunderstanding, bereavement and rejection. 'In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.'
Now come with me about ten miles north of there, to a rubbish dump outside Jerusalem, 33 years later. Much has changed. The infant, the most powerful symbol of the love of God that could ever have been given, has grown up into a man, but a man no longer physically recognisable because of the welts on his face and the ripped flesh across his chest and back. The sky above him no longer has bright stars in the night, but dark clouds in the day. The two people next to him are not loving parents, but common criminals; the crowds have changed from saying 'Hosanna in the highest' to 'His blood be upon us and our children'. His earthly father has died. His closest friends have abandoned, denied or betrayed him. His enemies have mocked and humiliated him. The government has stripped, tortured and crucified him. And the wrath of God at all our lies and lusts and pride and envy and greed is being poured out on him, breaking utterly the fellowship with the Father and the Spirit which he has experienced and exulted in since before the foundation of the world.
If that doesn't explain to you what the love of God is, come closer to the cross, and listen to what Jesus is saying. The only one who matters is thinking of his mother, his friend, and even the criminal next to him. The God who created water is asking for a drink. The God-man whose presence had never borne any sin is crying out in anguish at being forsaken by his Father. The man with nails through his wrists and feet, his lungs slowly filling with his own blood, is crying out, 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' Astoundingly , the one who decided to allow man to make his own choices, is now fully experiencing their consequences, is shouting triumphantly that those consequences have been dealt with, finished - a victory cry which still resounds across history, affirming once and for all that the love of God is a love of both power and passion, both perfection and propitiation."
Oh, how He loves us so.
