1 John Chapter 4

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

~ 1 John 4:7-11~

What’s Love?

In verse 7, we learn that love is of God. God loves us and is the source from which all true love flows from. And He loved us so much that He was willing to sacrifice His only Son to die on the cross when we evidently do not deserve it.

And the test to see if we truly love is found in verse 8:
“He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

If we are unable to love others, it tells us a lot about ourselves.

We may attend services regularly, serve in His church and attend Bible Studies or Fellowships … but if we are not loving people, there is something very wrong with our belief.

If we say we are Christians, it is very clear that “we must love one another”.

When we love others, it shows the world that God lives in us. And that God also loves them and wants to live in them as well.

Love is completely essential.

But if we look at how the world views love today, it is very far from what Elder John was trying to explain to us.

The world and even many Christians understands love in a different way from how the Bible teaches us.

Nowadays, very often we hear words like ‘tolerance’ and ‘acceptance’. And Christian love is now called to tolerate and accept things that are clearly considered an abomination in the Bible. Things like same-sex marriages, rainbow movement…

These have become ‘main-stream’ in many societies and if you dare make a stand against it and be vocal about it, you are called a bigot, intolerant … and these are just the nicer sounding words.

But since when does love mean that hating evil is now considered uncivilised, insensitive and even ungodly?

Is it a Christian thing to do to ignore what is wrong and play ignorant in the name of love? Does loving someone mean that we are obliged to embrace the main-stream views and interpretation of love – and not that of the Bible?

Does loving someone mean we whole-heartedly accept and agree to how they value what is important in their lives – even if they are clearly wrong when compared to the Scriptures?

Many Christians idea of love is a love that is warm, fuzzy, comfortable and feels good. But they have no idea of how or what God expects from us in how we conduct and behave ourselves.

So let us consider our love today. Is it real? Is it true? Is it love that comes from God and is of God?

Or is our love of that of the world?

Think about it today.

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