Daily Thoughts from 1 John: First Love (4:7-12)

Daily Thoughts from 1 John: First Love

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have 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. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.  (1 John 4:7-12 ESV)

Since love is one of the tests of a true Christian, John urges his readers to love one another.  Love for one another is evidence that one has been born of God because He is love and whatever He begets will be like Him.  By saying that God is love (much like earlier in the letter he said “God is light”) John is showing how much God is the standard for what love means and how it shows itself.

God’s love is never without action, nor should ours be.  He sent His Son, His only Son, before we loved Him.  God demonstrated His love for us (using Paul’s words in Romans 5) in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  God made Jesus a propitiation for our sins, that is, a sacrifice that satisfies God’s just demands for the penalty due us for our rebellion.

Though no one has ever seen God (the same thing John says in his Gospel, 1:18), we demonstrate that we have Him in some mysterious way abiding in us when we love others as He loved us.  He loved us unconditionally, before we loved Him.  And when we love this way we prove that God’s love has had it’s desired end in our lives.

love starts at home: family first, and then your own town. It is easy to love people who are far away, but it is not always easy to love those who live right next to us. I do not agree with the big way of doing things. Love needs to start with an individual. [Mother Teresa, A Simple Path (Ballantine)]