To Know Him Is To Love Him

TO KNOW HIM IS TO LOVE HIM (1 JOHN 5)

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Here some quotes from the internet:

“I love God, but

…I cuss a little!”

---have road rage

---stand on the couch at club

…will smack somebody”

Here’smore:

“I love God, but I can’t stand the church.”

“I love God, but some of His children get on my nerves.”

“I love God, but I keep sinning.”

“I love God, but I’m not happy with leaders.”

“I love God, but I do not love my neighbor.”

John is not called the apostle of love for nothing. The verb “love” occurs 143 times in the Bible, but a total of 68 times or nearly half is from John’s pen - 28 times is in 1 John alone, more than any chapter except 37 times in John’s gospel, twice in 2 John (2x) and one in 3 John. 1 John, however, begins with loving one’s brother (2:10), loving one another (3:11), loving the brethren (3:14) and loving the children of God (1 John 5:2) , but climaxes and ends with loving God (5:2). Loving God is the first and great commandment in life (Matt 22:38).

Do you love God? How do you show it? Why is loving God a blessing and not a burden?

Apply His Word

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, 4 for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. 6 This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.

Once upon a time there lived an elderly millionaire who had four nephews. Desiring to make one of these his heir, he tested their cleverness. He gave to each a $100.00 bill, with the request that they hide the bills for a year in the city of New York. Any of them who should succeed in finding the hidden bill at the end of the year should share in the inheritance.

The year being over, the four nephews brought their reports. The first, deeply chagrined, told how he had put his bill in the strongest and surest safe deposit vault, but, alas, clever thieves had broken in and stolen it. The second had put his in charge of a tried and true friend. But the friend has proved untrustworthy and had spent the money. The third had hidden his bill in a crevice in the floor of his room, but a mouse had nibbled it to bits to build her nest. The fourth nephew calmly produced his $100.00 bill, as crisp and as fresh as when it had been given him.

“And where did you hide it?” asked his uncle. “Too easy! I stuck it in a hotel bible.” (More Toasts, Gertrude Stein)

Loving God means the purpose (hina) of keeping His commandments (v 3). Loving God is not an abstract but an actual faith, not passionate but practical spirituality, producing not subjective, sentimental or sugary, but consistent, concrete and circumspect believers.

Verse 3’s burdensome (“his commands are not burdensome”) means heavy (Matt 23:4), grievous (Acts 20:29) and weighty (2 Cor 10:10). It means unbearable, unjust and uneducated, Without God’s word, there is no authority, no anchor and no awakening.

Why is keeping his commands important? Because (gar) only those who keep his commandments can overcome the world (v 4). John in his epistle tells us that in Christ we have overcome the wicked one (1 John 2:13), the spirit of the antichrist (1 John 4:3-4) and now the world (1 John 5:4). The verb “overcome” (vv 4-5) occurs only four times in the Bible up to 1 John (Luke 11:22, John 16:33, Rom 3:4, 12:21 twice), but six times in 1 John (1 John 2:13, 2:14, 4:4, 5:4 twice, 5:5), eventually overtaken by its 17 times in Revelation! The testimony is from the Spirit, water and the blood. The noun form “victory” occurs only once in the Bible, here in verse 4. In John’s gospel and the letters of John the use of the verb tense is as follow:

You have overcome (perfect tense) the wicked one (1 John 2:13)