God’s Love and Ours
1 John 1:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Let’s pray:
Father, we’re here to read part of John’s first letter, this section on love from chapter four. It’s You who loves us and You who teach us to love, so I’m asking, speak to me about this, that Lord Jesus would join me in this and reveal to me what You want us to say or point out or confess or well, anything. It’s your choice, I’m here at Your direction, so I lay down my desires for whatever you want to do with this with me. Lead me, Lord. For Jesus, in Jesus and with Jesus I pray. Amen.
Love comes from God.
If you love, you know God. How? He loves you. In a couple verses it’s going to tell us that there’s no way to love outside of God having loved us first. Let’s go on.
1 John 1:8 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.
This is how God showed his love: He sent Jesus
Jesus is God’s One and Only Son. Why?
So that we might live through Him, Jesus. Live through Jesus.
The only life, the best life, is through Jesus. Afterall, he’s over everything and it’s His will that matters. No, I’m not saying it’s easy to turn it all over and do nothing without Him, but it’s always the best choice you can make.
1 John 1:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
This is love: what God did for us. God sent His son to be the sacrifice that would atone for all our sins. He’s rescued us, made us free and dressed us in his righteousness. There is now nothing that can separate us from God’s love.
What God has done for us makes Romans 8 true. It’s how the very first words in Romans 8 are true for us:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because the Law of the Spirit who gives Life has set you free from the Law of sin and death.
No, I didn’t look those up, those 2 verses have been percolating in my mind for months. They make a complete sentence and say it all in one sentence. We are free. The Spirit who gives life.
Yet the ones I was referring to in Romans 8 are further down, round about the 28th verse if I’m remembering correctly, the list of things that cannot separate us from God. Every word is true and if you’ll take them and really believe them, your life will be different.
1 John 1:11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
John is so sweet. He often calls the recipients of his letters Dear. It’s not like we write letters, it’s mid letter, it’s a very personal love he’s sending. Dear friends. His heart is in the writing. Here he’s pleading softly for us to love one another as we have been loved.
1 John 1:12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
That idea, God’s love is made complete in us. What a gift that is. Somehow in this verse he’s saying if we love one another, it’s God working and living through us and in the doing it, that love will be completed in us.
1 John 1:13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.
Yes, I know he’s talking shortly about the apostles, but we can know this too, do you know His Spirit is within you? Because it is if you believe and if you read Peter, he will tell you that we have received a faith as precious as that faith the apostle’s had.
1 John 1:14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
They had seen. John, the beloved Disciple is John the Apostle who writes these words of love to us, his dear friends. We can know through the Book. We can experience Him in our lives and have as much of Him as we want which can only mean, keep growing your faith and He will keep filling you up. Jesus Himself said “Blessed are those who have not seen, yet have believed.” So we’re blessed as much if not more than they were.
1 John 1:15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.
The litmus test: Acknowledge that Jesus is God’s Son.
Do so and God will live in you and you in God and the words of Jesus in John 15 ring true too.
If you have faith, never fear. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Jesus has ahold of you and will never let you go. (John 6)
1 John 1:16 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.
We know and Rely on the love God has for us. And because God is love, we can completely rely on Him.
1 John 1:17 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.
Who do you know that loves like Jesus? That acts like Jesus? John isn’t saying we are Jesus or completely imitate him, just that we are ‘like Jesus’. Because if you’re relying on God’s love for you, remaining in Jesus, they live in You and you can live through them. Faith tells you you’re covered in Jesus’ righteousness. Faith. It’s indispensable.
1 John 1:18 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.
There’s no fear. But no one this side of heaven is made perfect. We’re all on the road there, but there is no one you or I know, including ourselves, that has no fear. Still, the more we dwell in the love of God, the closer to fearless we will be.
1 John 1:19 We love because he first loved us.
Well said. Simple. Concise. Huge ramifications.
It’s as if what he’s saying is we love because God’s love has so filled us and covered us that we can do nothing less than love.
1 John 1:20 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.
Check yourself. Do you harbor ill will towards anyone?
Let it go. You cannot love God and harbor ill will towards any of God’s creation.
1 John 1:21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
See John 15 to hear Jesus command that.
John here is just specifying it.
God loves you, so act like it.
You are loved more than you can imagine.
Love others out of that.
These brothers and sisters are faith brothers and sisters, but everyone is worthy of love.
Love out of the love you’ve been given. God positively drowns us in it every day, just look outside to see some of the ways.
Grow your faith so you can believe you are filled with love.
Grow your faith so you can know.
Faith is Indispensable.