True Love
How full is your love meter these days? Have you been loving others in the way that God loves you? Love means not being critical, judgmental, and bitter towards others. Love means putting on the fullness of Christ and walking out the righteousness we’ve been called to daily. Let’s check in with the Apostle John and see just how well we’re doing with this whole Love thing!
Dear friends, let us love one another…
John starts out this passage of Scripture with an appeal in brotherly love. “Dear friends…” We are all in this journey of life together, now let us do the one thing that will make this journey go well… Let us love one another! “Let us…” There is an opportunity that is awaiting us in this passage of Scripture, an opportunity to love and soon we will find out why we have been given such an extraordinary experience!
…for love comes from God.
Now John is sharing exactly where love comes from! The mystery is solved. Love comes directly from God! You and I did not produce love. I know this is true because there are days when I don’t feel so lovely, yet I still feel loved by God! That’s incredible!
…Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God…
Wow! Don’t miss this simple part of Scripture! This is not meant to be complex at all. Does your life show love towards others? Have you shown forgiveness when it is needed? Or are you harboring resentment, bitterness, and anger? God calls us to righteousness, lives that live out His purpose and His love. We show that we are part of Him by giving His love to others. Love should simply overflow from our lives! Scripture is simple “Everyone who loves knows God and those who don’t must not know God.” Why is this? Well, let me answer that next.
…because God is LOVE.
There is nothing complicated about this! God IS LOVE! Plain and simple! The greatest expression of His love came in the form of a baby, to live on this earth and suffer for our sins. My sins and your sins were paid for on Calvary because of this LOVE! Read on to find more about this love.
…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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins…
The Greek word used for showed is “efanerwyh” and it means “to make visible or known what has been hidden”. The full extent of God’s love had been hidden from view. God’s love was not fully manifested or visible until the Son of God set foot on this earth. God knew the cost of sending His Son. He knew that Jesus would die on a cross for our sins, this was the purpose for the Son of God. The debt had to be paid for our sins. This is True Love! There will never be someone else who loves you this much. It is because of this love that you now have an opportunity to love others. Without this expression of love, you would never know what True Love is. God gave the purest form of love. A love that will never die and never quit on us! A love that never walks away and never fails!
…Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another…
It’s so easy to accept God’s love and live each day for ourselves. It’s a completely different thing to live that love out. How will you participate in God’s love this week? How will you love others? How will people see the greatest form of love lived out through your actions? Will people know that Jesus lives inside of you?
…No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us…
Are you living like God is real in your life? Is God’s love complete in you? It all begins with loving others. Who have you neglected to love? There is always someone seeking what you have. The world is lost and looking for the Savior who found us! Will we help them experience love in it’s Truest Form?
…If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us…
May this be a week where you are not ashamed of the Gospel. There are some who do not have the freedom to worship God like we do in America. We should never take that for granted. To my brothers and sisters being persecuted for their faith, I pray for you often. You have taught me a great deal of what it means to truly acknowledge the love of God and the work His Son has done. Thank you for being actively involved in God’s Kingdom! You do not labor in vain!
…God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him…WE LOVE BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US. (1 John 4:7-19, in bold above)
Dear Father God, I pray this week will be a time for me to reflect on the greatness of your love. Please help me not to take for granted the tremendous opportunity I have to love others, all because you first loved me! May You continue to teach me what love truly is and help my actions to look a lot more lovingly!
Grateful for the Truest Love,
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!