Every day around the world, the words “I love you” are spoken billions of times, and it is easy to see why, once you look at how much love dominates our culture. Of the millions of books published worldwide each year, 62.5% have love as a central theme, and roughly half of all major movies and songs released globally center on love as well. Psychiatrists and psychologists have found that among our greatest human needs are to be wanted, needed, and loved and that people who feel loved carry a 50% lower risk of depression. But no one knows more about love than the God who created it, and no author in Scripture wrote about love more than the apostle John, who used the word 85 times and gave us the most famous three words on the subject: “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16, ESV). John now turns from our love for God to God’s love for us, showing us four ways we can know that love is real.

In 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California. By 1849, more than 100,000 prospectors had flooded the state, hoping to strike it rich. Many of these inexperienced miners were badly fooled when they mistook pyrite for real gold. It shined. It sparkled. It looked valuable. But it was not gold, so it earned the name “fool’s gold.” To tell the difference, prospectors learned to test it: Real gold dents when you bite it or press it with a knife, while pyrite cracks. Real gold leaves a yellow streak when rubbed on porcelain, while pyrite leaves a black one.

Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Love is the most powerful force in the universe,” and that is true, not just because he said it, but because Jesus said the same thing in God’s Word when He gave us the two greatest commandments: Love God and love your neighbor. If everyone truly loved this way, we would not need jails, weapons, or courts, because love never fails.