September 22
________________________________________ LOVE EACH OTHER AND GOD WILL ABIDE IN YOU
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 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. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. – 1 John 4:7-14
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In this gospel account of John, he focuses on one of God’s attribute. God is love. This is the reason why He requires us all to love one another. Verse 9 shows us how much God loves us. He gave his only Son into the world so that we have life through Him. When He created us all, He made us all in His own image, so we are all made out of love. This is how we are made, so when we operate in fear, we are not maximizing the loving person God made us to be. Verse 10 tells us that we are loved by God first and it is impossible for us to love if He didn’t love us first. John further explains that if God loves us, we must love each other as well. Verse 12 says that though no one has seen God, we can know He is in us if we abide in Him. He gave us the Holy Spirit as a proof that we have His presence if we believe in both the Son and the Father. John witnesses to the Son because he himself saw Him and was loved by Him.
We are all commanded to love, but the world doesn’t want us to love the way God loves. In Genesis, sin came about and the idea of love was corrupted as well. From loving God, it became wanting to be like God and loving and pleasing the “self.” The world twisted the meaning of true love from unconditional love to conditional love. From a love that is sacrificial to selfish love. It is a love that is only concerned with what they can get from the other person, a love that is a transaction. So, the minute they cannot get what they expect from the other person, they leave or let go of them, just like disposing some object that they have no more use for. What a sad fate our world is facing now. God made us for the purpose of love but the enemy has corrupted that.
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REFLECTION
• How can we keep true love alive in this corrupt world?