SHOW ME HOW MUCH YOU LOVE HIM
“Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
1 John 4:7-8 NLT
This expression of love is another of John’s repetitive themes and another way of recognising a true believer.
John began this letter by declaring, “God is light.” Now that’s a powerful statement! God is not a light, one among many, but light itself, the very source of light. There is no light brighter than God in both the literal and spiritual sense.
What does John mean by “light”? He recorded Jesus’ words in his gospel,
“Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”
John 8:12 NLT
The imagery of light and darkness is one of the great themes of the Bible. Light exposes and illuminates. Darkness conceals, allowing evil to flourish in secret.
Jesus diagnosed the reason for wickedness in the world.
“And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”
John 3:19-21 NLT
God is light, and there is no darkness in Him, implies that He has no sin in Him and He will have nothing to do with sin. He is holy, utterly separated from sin. God’s Word is often compared to a light, illuminating God’s nature and ways so that we can know what He requires of us, His children.
“Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”
Psalms 119:105 NLT
So, since Jesus is God’s Word to us in human form, and since Jesus lived His life in obedience to God’s Word, we will learn to live our lives in obedience to God’s Word if we follow His example.
“God is love”, John’s second great declaration, is the other side of the coin. These two statements, God is light and God is love, perfectly sum up the nature of God. We can say the same thing in these two words, God is “holy-love”. These two qualities keep God’s nature in perfect balance.
Since we are God’s “tekna”, offspring, of the same nature as God through our new birth by the Spirit, we reveal that nature by loving one another as He loves us. Loving one another means that we do everything in our power to promote peace and harmony, to care for each other’s needs, and to build one another up in our faith.
Those who do not express God’s love in these ways, despite their claims, do not know God. It’s as simple as that.
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Real And Unchanging Love
REAL AND UNCHANGING LOVE
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God because God is love. This is how God showed His love among us. He sent His one and only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. This is love; not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4: 7-10).
This is one of the most profound passages of Scripture in the whole Bible. Strange that it should come from the pen of one who was once nicknamed, together with his brother James, “Boanerges”, sons of thunder. These two brothers were real hotheads.
Jesus had to rebuke them for wanting the fry the Samaritans in a certain village in Samaria for refusing hospitality to Jesus. It’s quite understandable that the Samaritans didn’t want this Jew in their village. After all, it was the Jews who despised the Samaritans, not the other way around. Why would they accept Him into their homes and then have Him ridicule them to their faces? Of course, they did not know Jesus.
This same hothead wrote these words, Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. What brought about the transformation? Just being with Jesus and being loved by Him! Three years in the Master’s company did wonders for the disposition of these two brothers. But it was even more than that. John himself was loved – deeply loved by Jesus. Jesus loved him not only for who he was but also in spite of who he was. Did you get that? That’s the miracle of God’s love. It’s so different from human love.
We love those to whom we are drawn because of their looks, their personalities, their way of treating us etc. Our love is mostly reciprocal. Have you ever watched a new father gazing into the face of his new-born baby? There is nothing but wonder and love in his eyes. He holds in his arms a helpless little person who is utterly dependent on him, and he rises to the occasion. He resolves in his heart to protect, provide and care for the little one for the rest of its life.
But gradually things change. The helpless baby becomes a stubborn, self-willed toddler who throws temper tantrums, refuses to obey and causes the father great frustration and embarrassment, especially when the child kicks and screams in rage on the shop floor when he cannot get his way. The same father who adored his baby son now beats him mercilessly or shouts at him endlessly when the child begins to show the same characteristics that are in him.
By the time his son reaches teenage, father and son have lost connection with one another. Love has given way to indifference or ever rejection. Why? Because the child did not come up to the father’s expectations, or even worse, the son was so like his father that the father couldn’t bear to have him near. Where is the love for his child now?
But the love of God is not like that. God loves because He cannot help it. Love is the very essence of who He is. God loves us, not because of but in spite of who and what we are. We are His offspring, made in His image, alive by His breath in us. He loves us because of Himself, not because of us. Nothing we do or do not do changes or affects His love. He cannot love us any more or any less than He loves us now.
Is it any wonder that the devil works so hard to keep us from believing in the love of God? Who would run from a love like that if we really grasped the enormity and the reality of a love that embraces the worst of us and transforms us from hotheads to lovers of God?
How can we be sure of this love? Love is an action, not an emotion word. Love reveals its nature by what it does. God’s love reached its highest point in the gift of His Son to a world that hated and rejected Him. How great that love gives, but what about a love that gives the very best you have, to have it thrown back in your face? That’s what His people did to the Father. He knew it would happen but He gave anyway.
It was not only the Father who gave. The Son also gave – His life for the sins of the world. No one will ever know what He endured for the sake of love. His love was written in blood on the soil of His beloved land, spilled at the feet of those who hated and crucified Him. How reciprocal was that! No, God’s love is pure giving love.
It is this love that melts our hardened hearts and calls for a response of love. We love, because He first loved us. It was this love that melted John’s heart and transformed a hothead into the apostle of love. It was this love that changed Paul from a murderer to a passionate lover of Jesus who was unafraid to pour out his own life blood for his Master.
If you gaze at this love long enough, you too will be transformed.
Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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