Craig Marvin Johnson Craig Marvin Johnson
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Becoming a People Who Love Because God First Loved Us

Knowing Love

by Craig Marvin Johnson

What does Christian love require when feelings fade, wounds remain, or truth is difficult?

*Knowing Love* moves beyond sentiment to reveal the holy, self-giving love made visible in Jesus Christ. Learn to receive God’s love, love Him with your whole being, serve His people, forgive wisely, tell the truth, and seek the genuine good of others.

About The Book

**We love because God first loved us.**

Few words carry more meaning, confusion, longing, and pain than *love*. We use it for affection, attraction, loyalty, approval, sacrifice, and preference. Yet Scripture does not begin its definition with our feelings. It begins with God.

God is love, and He has shown His love supremely by sending His Son. Christian love is therefore more than sentiment, attraction, or unconditional approval. It is holy, self-giving commitment that seeks another person’s true good in faithfulness to God. It rejoices with truth, protects the vulnerable, serves without demanding recognition, forgives without calling evil good, and remains when obedience is costly.

In *Knowing Love: Becoming a People Who Love Because God First Loved Us*, Craig Marvin Johnson explores:

- What biblical love truly is and why it begins with God
- How to receive the love we could never earn
- What the wounds of Christ reveal about the heart of God
- How to love God with the whole person
- How the Church makes Jesus visible through faithful love
- How to love enemies, tell the truth, forgive, and walk in wisdom
- Why love remains when every temporary gift has completed its work

The Gospels show the love of Jesus touching lepers, welcoming children, confronting hypocrisy, weeping beside a tomb, washing proud disciples’ feet, and opening its arms upon a cross. His love is tender without becoming weak, truthful without becoming cruel, and sacrificial without cooperating with evil.

For readers who have known faithful love, and for those who have experienced manipulation carried under its name, *Knowing Love* offers a deeply biblical path beyond sentiment, fear, control, and avoidance. It invites us to receive the love revealed in Christ and become people who love with courage, wisdom, holiness, and grace.

*Knowing Love* is Book Five of **The Knowing Series** and can also be read as a complete, standalone study of biblical love.

**Truth reveals. Grace gives. Faith responds. Hope endures. Love remains.**

Craig Marvin Johnson

Craig Marvin Johnson

I am a father of 6, happily married. Living in Rocky Point North Carolina.

I have always loved music and writing and the creative process. In my work I have opportunity to write music and other content. The books here on my page represent long standing projects that are finally coming to fruition. My wife and I moved here from Iowa in 2023 with our two youngest children. I answered the call into full time ministry. I am now the Pastor of Worship and Discipleship at Wrightsboro Bapist Church in Wilmington, NC. My passion is music and worship and I love to see people respond to the gospel.

More Books by Craig Marvin Johnson

Jonah and the Whale

A True Story of God's Mercy

God said, “Go to Nineveh.”
Jonah went the other way.
He boarded a ship bound for Tarshish—but no distance, storm, or raging sea could carry him beyond God’s reach. When Jonah was thrown overboard, the Lord appointed a great fish to rescue him. Yet Jonah’s hardest lesson would come after Nineveh repented.
Filled with cinematic artwork and faithful to Jonah 1–4, Jonah and the Whale tells the complete biblical account—from Jonah’s call and flight to God’s final question about mercy.
The included CrossTalk Kids teaching guide helps children and families read Scripture, think deeply, talk together, pray, and discover how Jonah’s story ultimately points to Jesus.

Daniel and the Lions' Den

A True Story of Faith and Courage

aniel's courage did not begin in the lions' den.

Long before that dangerous night, Daniel had learned to trust God in the choices he made every day. Far from home and surrounded by people who worshiped false gods, he prayed faithfully, worked with excellence, told the truth, and chose obedience even when it cost him something.

Then a jealous plan made prayer a crime.

Daniel would have to decide whether he would protect himself or remain faithful to the God he loved. What followed revealed not only Daniel's courage, but the power and faithfulness of the living God.

Richly illustrated and rooted in Daniel chapters 1 and 6, *Daniel and the Lions' Den* helps children discover that small choices of faith prepare us for life's biggest moments, God is greater than anything we fear, and Daniel's deliverance points us toward Jesus, our greater Deliverer.

**Faithfulness is built one day at a time.**

You Can't Get That Online

Rediscovering Worship, Community, and Growth in the Gathered Church

Online worship can carry sermons, songs, and encouragement far beyond the walls of a church. It is a genuine gift during illness, travel, caregiving, recovery, and other seasons when gathering is impossible.
But watching a service is not the same as sharing life with the body of Christ.
In You Can’t Get That Online, Craig Marvin Johnson explores what a screen cannot fully provide: shared worship, authentic fellowship, personal accountability, side-by-side service, embodied care, and the transforming experience of being known within a local church.
This is not an argument against technology. It is an invitation to something deeper.
Streaming connects. Gathering transforms.

Singing Is A Contact Sport

Why worship isn't a spectator act

Worship is a full-body, full-heart, full-out connection with God and each other.

The Preference Driven Church

Moving beyond personal preference to authentic church growth

Everyone has preferences.
That statement is obvious, but it is important.
We have preferences about food, clothing, music, schedules, furniture, temperature, lighting, automobiles, neighborhoods, sports teams, and vacation destinations.
We prefer certain colors.
We favor particular styles.
We enjoy some experiences more than others.
We are drawn toward what feels familiar, meaningful, comfortable, or beautiful to us.
The same is true in church.

Avodah

Your Work As Worship

What if worship did not end when the music stopped?

*AVODAH: Your Work as Worship* is a 52-week devotional journey that brings Sunday faith into Monday life. Through Scripture, practical reflection, prayer, and weekly acts of worship, Craig Marvin Johnson shows how ordinary work, faithful service, relationships, rest, creativity, and everyday responsibilities can become offerings to God.

Your work matters. Your service matters. Your whole life can become worship.

Sent

Living from the Identity Jesus Gives Us

If you belong to Jesus, you are already sent.

In *SENT*, Craig Marvin Johnson traces the mission of Jesus across all four Gospels and shows that sharing your faith begins not with pressure, personality, or performance, but with identity. Discover a peaceful, Spirit-dependent way to live as a citizen of God’s Kingdom—present to the people around you, attentive to where God is working, ready to speak of Jesus, and free to entrust every outcome to Him.

In The Beginning, God

A children's book of Creation, Scripture, Song, and the Gospel

The creation account forms a foundation for faith. In Genesis, we are invited to behold God as Creator. He speaks light
into darkness, shapes the skies and seas, fills the land with plants and trees, places lights in the heavens, fills the waters
and the skies with life, creates animals, and makes Adam and Eve in His image.
This book is really three books in one: a children's storybook, a visual song accompaniment, and a Scripture-guided walk
through creation that turns toward the good news of Jesus Christ.
Read it slowly. Let children notice the pictures. Ask what they see. Sing the lyrics. Read the Scripture. Then point them to
the greatest truth of all: the God who made the whole world also made a way for us to know Him personally through
Jesus.
Sincerely,
Craig Marvin Johnson

Noah and the Ark

The Greatest Rescue Mission In History

The account of Noah is found in Genesis 6-9. Noah was six hundred years old when the flood came, and the people preserved through the flood were exactly eight adults: Noah, his wife, his three sons, and their three wives.
For that reason, this retelling keeps Noah’s family as adults and avoids showing children aboard the ark. The ark is also pictured as enormous and strong, reflecting the great scale of the vessel described in Scripture.
Some visual details, such as clothing, tools, and landscapes, are imagined in a historically grounded ancient Near Eastern style to help children enter the world of the story.

Knowing The Truth

A Journey of Knowing Christ, Living His Word, and Making Disciples

Before You Turn the Page...
This book is more than something to read.
It is an invitation.
An invitation to know God's Word.
To walk more closely with Jesus.
To grow in spiritual maturity.
To become a faithful disciple.
And to help others discover the freedom that is found only in Him.
So before you begin…
Pray.
Open your Bible.
Invite the Holy Spirit to teach you.
Then turn the page...
The journey begins now.

Knowing Grace

Receiving The Gift That Changes Everything

Grace is one of the most beautiful words in the Christian faith, and also one of the most easily misunderstood.

Some hear grace and think only of forgiveness. Others hear grace and imagine softness, as though God has lowered His holiness or decided to overlook sin. Some speak of grace as if it were a permission slip for careless living. Others believe in grace with their theology, but struggle to rest in it with their souls.

Yet the grace of God is far greater, deeper, stronger, and holier than any of those misunderstandings. Grace is not God pretending sin does not matter. Grace is God dealing with sin through the finished work of Jesus Christ. Grace is not the absence of truth. Grace is truth reaching sinners with mercy, power, and love.

Knowing Faith

Trusting The God Who Never Lets Go

What does it mean to trust God when you cannot see what He is doing?

*Knowing Faith* is a biblical and deeply pastoral invitation to move beyond positive thinking and rest the full weight of your life upon the God who never changes. Learn to walk through uncertainty, remain faithful under pressure, take the next obedient step, and keep your eyes fixed on Jesus.

Knowing Hope

Holding Fast to the God Who Holds Tomorrow

What sustains faith between promise and fulfillment?

*Knowing Hope* explores the confident expectation Scripture offers to people living through waiting, grief, uncertainty, and loss. Rooted in the cross, the empty tomb, and the unchanging character of God, this pastoral guide will help you hold fast to the God who holds tomorrow.

Knowing Peace

Resting in the God Who Holds Us Together

Biblical peace is more than a quiet life or the absence of conflict. It is wholeness under the good rule of God.

*Knowing Peace* will help you rest in Christ’s finished work, meet Him in fear and anxiety, practice peace daily, pursue reconciliation without surrendering truth, and live as an instrument of His peace.

Knowing Joy

Rejoicing in the God Who Is Our Gladness

Christian joy is not a cheerful personality or the ability to keep smiling when life hurts. It is the deep gladness of belonging to God through the risen Christ.

*Knowing Joy* will help you receive the good news of Jesus, abide in His delight, rejoice without denying pain, obey with gladness, and live toward the celebration that never ends.