God's Love and Loving One Another (1 John 4:7-12)

GOD'S LOVE AND LOVING ONE ANOTHER (1 JOHN 4:7-12):

After writing about the Spirit of truth and Spirit of deception, Apostle John writes about the actions that have to be as one who had received the Spirit of truth. The author addresses the believers as beloved and tells them to love one another, for love is from God and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. A person who had received and really influenced by the love of God, desires to know God and know the self in order to please God, and will love one another for it is the greatest commandment of God. The author also says that anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. A person might believe in God for his salvation, but being with the Lord could be possible only by practicing and following the commandments of God. A person who could not love others had not known God as the way God really is, and how they ought to be for living a Godly life.

God is not loving just in words but He had manifested His love for all human beings. The author says that God sent His only Son into the world so that all might live through Him, and through it, God was made manifest among the believers. Also, the author writes, it is not that the believers had first loved God but it is that He loved and sent His Son to be the propitiation for sins, which is genuine love. God gave the commandments to man, telling out the consequences, but man failed. Still, God did not leave man to come to Him but provided the way to be saved from all the mistakes by His eternal plan, by revealing Himself through various means, before man appealed and repented.

The author further writes to the believers who had received the love of God, by calling them beloved, and writes that if God so loved the believers, they also ought to love one another. The believers are called to reflect the love of Christ in the earth by being salt and light, doing the good works so that people would know Jesus through them and glorify the Father in heaven. Loving one another is not an option but a necessity for a believer to have a valid relationship and dependence on God. The author writes that no one had ever seen God and if believers love one another, God abides in them and His love is perfected. God is incomprehensible, invincible, and majestic for human beings to perceive Him. Only when the believers love one another, they could really find God abiding in them and God’s love is completely experienced by them.

Stimulations for Self-Reflection:

1.      What believers should do? Why?

2.      Who is one who loves another person born of? How?

3.      Who doesn’t know God? Why?

4.      How we can love one another?

5.      How the love of God is made manifest among us? Why?

6.      How it is that not believers loved God but God loved them?

7.      Do God’s love is needed for all? Justify?

8.      Why we have to love one another?

9.      Has anyone seen God? Justify? 

10.  What is the result of loving one another?

11.  What is the perfection of God’s love in us?