God is love. Jesus was love incarnate. The high-water mark of the Scriptures doesn’t come at the beginning, but near the close. Not “in the beginning God created heaven and earth” but “God is love.” Classic works of systematic theology start with a series of propositions: God is all-powerful, God is all-knowing, God is all-present, God is Creator. These are all good, but they put the cart before the horse. They should start with just one assertion: God is love. With that beginning, everything that follows takes on a different shape. So here I am, after writing scads of books, at last turning to the topic most important of all, the one that makes sense of the beauty and the terror that we call living. This book isn’t a discourse on love, far less a theology of love—which would be a ridiculous endeavor. Love cannot be reduced to propositions and syllogisms. Love can only be seen, be heard, be felt. This book is all stories—stories about love. Most of the stories come out of the author’s life. You’ll find that he repeatedly goes back to this first letter of John, especially to 4:16 where he pens the most important verse in the whole Bible: “God is love.” So who is this person who left us this simple but profound letter? Although scholars are divided on the answer, the author think he was John the apostle, one of the Twelve, the person designated by the intriguing expression “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Early tradition identified him as the author, writing as an old man from the city of Ephesus. For Johnsson, this early tradition is true. Living in Love moves from beginnings—his beginning as a writer and the greater, the supreme Beginning when Love became incarnate and lived among us—through stories of love in his life to a concluding section, “Four Loves.” In many ways it’s a potpourri of the mystery and marvel of this elusive, wonderful blessing we call love. This book's inside illustrations are in color.