We hear a lot about love in the world today, but lately we see a lot more hate. Unfortunately this is sometimes also true in the church and among Christians. And the so-called love that we see is one that falls under the world’s faulty and skewed definition of love, not the kind of love that is described in the Bible. The Apostle John spoke often of true, godly Christian love in his epistles. In our New Testament reading for this week we will take another look at the kind of love that God has for us, and which we should have both for Him in return, and for our Christian brothers and sisters.
When we think of God, one of the first characteristics that should come to mind is that God is love, and how that love is shown forth to us each and every day. God is the essence of love. Love is inherent in all He is and all He does. Some people might first think of God as an angry and wrathful deity. However even His judgment and wrath are perfectly harmonized with His love.
Those who are truly born again should exhibit the characteristic habit of love for others, especially to their fellow Christians (vs. 7-8). When we are saved we receive God’s nature. Love is a major characteristic of that nature. Because of that, we should always be reflecting that love. We need to reflect Jesus’ loving character in our behavior and attitude. Someone who professes to be a Christian, but who is filled with hate for others, especially if they are exhibiting hate towards a fellow believer, does not truly know God. Scripture clearly says here that if someone does not have love for others he does not know God.
The Bible says “God is love”. It does not say “Love is God”. The world has turned this around. It has a shallow and selfish view of love. The world believes it is alright to sacrifice moral principles and other’s rights to obtain its view of love. Real love, though, patterns itself after God.
Love is a choice and an action. God is the source of our love. He sent His Son to die for us. Jesus is our example of what it means to love. Everything that He did in life and in death was supremely loving. It is through the work of the Holy Spirit in our life that we have the power to truly love others in the manner that God does. God showed sacrificial love for us in sending His Son to die for our sins (vs. 9). We should show sacrificial love for others, as well. Usually we are not called upon to give up our lives for others, though sometimes some may do that. However, we need to be willing to give up our comforts for others if and when needed. We, as believers and followers of Jesus, need to follow God’s pattern of sacrificial love for others (vs. 11).
We didn’t love God first. That is often very obvious, as many believers first had anger, or at the least a great indifference towards God. God loved us first by giving His Son as a propitiation (an appeasement or satisfaction) for our sins (vs. 10). Jesus Christ’s shed Blood satisfied the demands of God’s holy justice and wrath against sin.
Jesus is the complete expression of God in human form, and He has revealed God to us. When we love one another, God reveals Himself to others through us (vs. 12). Since Jesus is no longer bodily here, the only demonstration of God’s love in this age is through the Church. Love originated in God, was manifested in His Son, and is demonstrated through His people when they allow the Holy Spirit to work through them.
As stated earlier, God’s very nature is love. That love is the reason He provided our salvation at His own great expense, at the life of His Son Jesus (vs. 16). For this reason people need to know that God loves us. Just as the father forgave his prodigal son when he returned in repentance (Luke 15:11-32), God is always ready to forgive us, no matter what we’ve done, if we turn to Him. God loves us!
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