My initial plan was to focus on one atribute of the fruit of the spirit each month. However, I'm going to continue with LOVE through April. This is for two reasons. First, I don't think I really focused on it enough in my daily life in March. Second, we have learned that in many ways love is the key to everything. "The greatest is love." "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself." Etc. Etc.
So for my study today I have been rereading 1 John, which is full of instructions to love and how to love. I challenge you to read the whole book (it is a pretty short one). John talks about how love is the key. He describes how love is not new. Cain's behavior, for example, back in Genesis should have been love, not jealousy and murder. And yet we can now know and understand love in a new way since Jesus has come. "We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us." 1 John 3:16
The section of 1 John that I want to share with you is the second half of chapter 4. It begins like this:
Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love. God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. (vs 7-10)
Again we find that real love is not something we can produce on our own. It comes from God. In addition, I think that John is making a case that love is sacrificial. I can tell my husband that I love him and I can feel "in love" with him, but if I'm not doing things to make his life better, if I'm not laying down my wants so that I can pick up his, then I'm not actually loving him.
Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us. (vs 11-12)
How cool is that - God in us!
And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. (vs 13-16)
Did you catch that all we have to do to have God in us is to confess that Jesus is the Son of God? As Paul puts it, "we are saved by grace, through faith." So if I want more love be at work in my life, through me, touching the people around me, maybe I need to stop trying so hard to act out love and need to do more confessing that Jesus is the Son of God. Praise him, worship him, listen to him, remain in him, shout it from the rooftops - Jesus is the Son of God.
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. (vs 16-17)
My Bible commentary says "We mature as our relationship with God grows, and God's love makes our love compete." The more we open up to God's love, the better our love becomes. And because we can see God's love at work through us, we can know that God is in us and that we don't have to fear judgement.
Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first. If someone says, “I love God,” but hates a Christian brother or sister, that person is a liar; for if we don’t love people we can see, how can we love God, whom we cannot see? And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love their Christian brothers and sisters. (vs 18-21)
No comments:
Post a Comment