DEVOTION
THE 1ST LETTER OF JOHN
LOVE FROM GOD
1 John 4:7-12
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love
does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among
us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son
as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love
one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
NIV
What else can we say that would enhance what this says? What we do know is that God created us with the inherent need for love. He created both
male and female for the purpose of being united, becoming one. This can only be
done with love. Without love, there can be no joining of a man and a woman as
one. Love is essential to our relationship with our spouse. We are born with a
love shaped hole in our heart and we seek out love to fill it. When we think of
God in three persons, or as the three in one, we have to see that this mystical
union of the three in one is based in love. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves
the Father, the Spirit loves the Father and the Son, and the Father and the Son
love the Spirit. When God created us, He did it in love and He has always loved his creation. Has he been disappointed with his creation? Of course, we know he
has, even to the point of bringing that great flood to destroy all but eight, because
they had become so wicked and turned their backs on him, not returning his
love. John tells us just how great the love of God is for us. He sent his Son into
the world that we might live through him. What we do not know is why he decided
to destroy the wicked with a flood and yet provided his Son so that we might be
saved. Why did he not save them, but saved us? Were they more wicked then we
are? That is the question some have posed. How can God be love, if he killed so
many people? What we also are able to see is that it was not his hatred for
them, but their hatred for Him that caused their destruction. The whole experience
of Noah and the ark gave a picture of what was going to happen on an even a
grander stage and eternal stage. All the while Noah was building the ark he
preached to the people, repent, and they refused. God gave the people over a
hundred years to repent, and they refused, so they perished. Now, we have Jesus
and the cross. God loves his creation so much he provided a way for all his
creation to get into the ark, so to speak, by getting into the cross, accepting
Jesus as their Lord and Savior. No greater love can be displayed, then God
sending Jesus to die in the cross shed his blood for the remission of our
sins. If God loves us that much, should we certainly love him, but we also
should love each other. Our hearts have been filled with love, from God and
from our spouse, who he gave to us. But we also should love others. Love is
from God, and we need love as others need love. One of the greatest ways in
which we can show our love toward others is to make sure they know of the love
of God. God showed his love through action, so then it would make sense we
cannot just say we love you, but need to show our love through actions. Again,
talking about how Paul defined it in his letter to the Corinthians, we can see love
in action, as well as, sharing the message of God’s love with those who are
still in danger of perishing, because they have not accepted his love. So we
first, need to live because of the love of God, and we should tell others of
the love from God.
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