1 John 4:7-12 Series

1 John 4:7-12

God Is Love

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Probably one of the most confusing words to mankind is this word love. It's so confusing that this pastor named Dr. Gary Chapman wrote a book called The Five Love Languages. What this attempts to do is help people in marriages understand each other better by understanding how a person feels loved.

So what are these five love languages you may ask. They are; quality time together, words of affirmation, physical touch, receiving gifts, and acts of service.

The reason why I know about this book is because I was in a relationship with a woman once who wanted me to read this book with her.

I think at this point is where our relationship started to go down hill, because I said to her no where in these five are “don't make your man read stupid books like this”.

Honestly I think the book is backwards. It should be recognizing and understanding how your spouse or potential spouse loves you based upon understanding scripture. I think I would have read that book.

Everything we do should be framed around scripture and this book seemed to be framed around worldly things in my opinion.

Matthew 22:34-40 ~ 34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

But love is the key reason why we should do everything we do in life. The love we received from God and Christ set the tone to how we love others, and that's sacrificially.

9 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.

So here it is the example of love for us to follow. God's love for His creation was brought to life in Christ's coming to earth so that we might have salvation through Him. This is the ultimate sign of love, the giving of ones life for another who did not deserve it.

Understand, I would have given my life as a sacrifice to that person I mentioned earlier, but I for sure wasn't going to read that book.

10 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.

Understand this is speaking about pre-salvation, that is that pre-salvation no one loves God, matter of fact it is the opposite.

Romans 1:28-31 ~ 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips,

30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

This in some ways if not most were every single one of us before God saved us.

Understanding this in the reflection of what Christ has done for each of us should at times crush is. This is why I always say it is important to have a clear understanding of who we were before we were saved. Knowing our true state allows us to then to see God and Christ to their fullest in the love mercy and grace we were given.

Romans 5:8-9 ~ But God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. That is love at its greatest.

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

I believe that here where it says “His love is perfected in us” it is talking about the Holy Spirit in us.