1 John 4:7-20
"Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God....God is love."
(1 JOHN 4:7-8)
I use the word "love" a lot, and often frivolously: "Love those pictures!" "Love your emails!" "Love that chocolate!" I use it for things that bring out certain emotions: excitement, satisfaction, amusement.
In our passage, John uses the word "love" twenty-three times, but never frivolously. He writes of God's love for us and our love for fellow believers. It's hard to drum up a natural love for everyone in the church. Too often feelings of indifference, resentment, and jealousy rule our relationships.
But John isn't appealing to our natural tendencies. He is speaking to us as born-again children. We are new people who have a new ability to love, because "we live in Him and He lives in us." John isn't telling hopeless sinners to love hopeless sinners; he's telling Spirit-birthed children to love Spirit-birthed children. We're not a bunch of unlovable wretches trying to feel good about each other. We're a family brought to life by the work of Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice for our sins.
INSIGHT
LOVING EACH OTHER BEGINS BY LOOKING AT THE CROSS.
READ THROUGH THE BIBLE IN A YEAR
Lamentations 3
Psalm 129
2 Corinthians 11
1 John 4:7-20
New International Version (NIV)
God’s Love and Ours
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
THE FAITH OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Abraham Lincoln is one of America's most beloved leaders, but did he know the Lord Jesus Christ? The topic has been hotly debated, but the best answer is found in his own words at the end of his life.
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