The Architect's Blueprint

A structural engineer was once called to inspect a building whose walls had begun to crack. The owner insisted the foundation was fine — he had built it with good intentions and sincere effort. But when the engineer examined the original blueprints against the actual construction, the discrepancy was plain. The builder had deviated from the architect's specifications, substituting his own measurements where the precise ones felt inconvenient. The foundation was not what the architect designed, and now the entire structure was failing.

Scripture presents us with God's authoritative blueprint for love. First John 4:7-8 declares, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love." This is not a sentimental suggestion — it is divinely inspired, inerrant revelation about the very nature of the Almighty. God does not merely practice love as one attribute among many. He is love in His essential being. This truth rests not on human experience but on the unchanging, infallible Word.

Our culture constantly redefines love according to shifting feelings and preferences, substituting its own measurements for the Architect's design. But as Wayne Grudem has reminded us, we do not get to improve upon what God has spoken. True love — sacrificial, holy, others-centered — flows only from the God who revealed it perfectly in Scripture and supremely at Calvary.

Build your understanding of love on the inerrant Word, and the foundation will never crack.