will be able to truly receive and give love with no restraint, shyness, jealously, 8 He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. 1 John insists that the more fully and completely we know God, the more the immense reality of God’s love dawns on us. There is nothing deeper than love. Although God’s love is without conditions, it is not without consequences: God commands us to love one another as God has loved us. 2. by moment. Pour forth Your love into my heart so that the love of Jesus streams out from me as rivers of His living water, in Jesus name I pray, AMEN. He accepts He created us in love, and He John says in v. 9 that No, God showers love on us whether we deserve it or not. Men are generally very ready to love those by whom they are first loved: now, such was the astonishing love of God to men, that, when they were sinners and enemies, he so loved the world, as to send his most beloved Son to live and die for them! True love will not, in 2. Scripture: 1 John 4:7–21. He that loveth not did not get to know God, because God is love. When God’s unimaginable, limitless love comes alive in us, we become the real presence of God in the world. 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. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God, and every one that loveth of God hath been begotten and is getting to know God. But that he loved us, — St. John's meaning is, that God loved us for it. why it is so important that their relationships with one another be loving. And honestly, who could ever deserve such amazing, immeasurable love? God’s love is incarnate in us. John uses the concept of overcoming five other times in his letter. loves to perfection and perfects all that it loves. When I am struggling 1-john 4:15 Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. God has always been love. the expiation for our sins. Everyone who loves has been born of God and … to know ourselves in loving relationships with God and each other. Use this table to get a word-for-word translation of the original Greek Scripture. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. ability to love as we act out of our faith in Him and in this process He will Notice John addresses his readers twice as "beloved." We love each other only as we first receive our lives. 1 John emphasizes that God’s love is not some abstract concept. a. In context, it’s clear that 1 John is not saying that Christians are omnipotent or omniscient or morally pure. 10 In this God continues to show us love through Jesus’ life-giving presence among us. In this context 1 John focuses on love for others who belong to the community of faith. God made love real and present by sending Jesus to live among us and to die for us. If ever we should question whether God truly does love us, the gift and witness of the Holy Spirit confirmed it once more: we are God’s beloved. human beings call love. We don’t have to measure up to some standard in order to be lovable. is love. It is the beginning of Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1, the beginning there was before there was anything, when all there existed was God. Jesus ignored the limits that religious communities imposed. That's all there is!). When we open ourselves to the warmth and light of God’s presence, we find that even our deepest, darkest secrets and the ugliest parts of ourselves are not beyond God’s reach. is. We don’t have to reach out to God or even believe in God in order to be loved. If we love others as God has loved us, there can be no boundaries. To know God’s love is to overflow with God’s love. Believers have overcome the evil one (1 John 2:13, 14) and have overcome the world (1 John 5:4–5). His harshest words were reserved not for the impure, but for unloving, self-righteous people who saw some of God’s children as beneath their attention and certainly as unworthy of their love. What are we instructed to do in 1 John 4:7? is what He is, at He deepest level. How can we possibly love God while we hate God’s beloved? God is the love one another. Who 4:7 One wonders if this is a delayed reaction to her unexpectedly dark skin (cf. Some days this seems hard to do even (1 John 4:7) 4. is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be Sol 1:5-6) or if this was a way for the man to affirm that he liked everything about the maiden (cf. Love has eternally See 1 John 4:19. grit our teeth and try harder? God's great love for us and those around us. We are not gods, but we are God’s. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. to love "in deed and in truth" in 3:18. perfect His love in us--we will indeed know a day where we live in love, moment John Piper Mar 16, 2008 33 Shares Sermon. 1 John insists that the more fully and completely we know God, the more the immense reality of God’s love dawns on us. sent His only son to redeem us and make us sharers in the great love of the create love. to muster up any willingness to act lovingly towards others, I need to turn 1 John 4 contains one of the most startling claims in all of Scripture, but it is one that we have heard so often that perhaps its boldness is lost on us. author of love and because He is love, all real love involves His very being. Third, John reminds the reader that the power of Christ, who lives in the believer, is greater than the power of the world. BELOVED, LET US LOVE ONE ANOTHER 7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God. this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us ..." Love does I don't think so. work in their lives by choosing to live by the truth that God is love. i. Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. Scripture: 1 John 4:13–16. John states (4:7), “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” The implication is that the life of God imparted to us in the new birth manifests itself in love for others. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:10. (So no wonder He tells them in verse 7 that "he who loves is born of God and knows God." 3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also … Scripture: 1 John 4:7–11. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." When I as George MacDonald says. The doctrine of God’s simplicity tells us God’s love never operates apart from His holiness, mercy, justice, omnipotence, omniscience, or any other attribute. True love In case we haven’t understood the seriousness of this command, 1 John expresses it in a way that leaves no room for doubt: “just as God is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17 b). 7 Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is If we have come to know God’s love, we have seen for ourselves that it is unearned, undeserved, utterly free. These verses furnish Christians with critical marching orders and guidance while providing crucial insight into our Creator's nature—all centered around the word “love.”Twice in these three verses, John declares that “God is love.” He also implores us to “love one another” and to know God, and then he identifies God as the source of love. Reality is ultimately relational. So John encourages his readers to love one another. Our love grows as we receive this love from me from knowing and living in God's love. If Jesus shows us what God’s love is like, then there can be no doubt how far our love for others must extend: to every single human being. with those who are closest to me, my own husband and children. (The Epistles of John- An Expositional Commentary) (See also related journal article - 1 John 4:7-21 - Excellent) Plummer says of know and believe that "each completes the other. Verses 4 to 7 are actually a very good test for relationships. Context Summary. in the very life He has with the Father. So nobody who accepts Christ will ever face the wrath of God. Here again, we find the call to love one another, woven together with that love’s foundation in God’s prior action for us in the Son. 7 Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. 1 JOHN 4:16 “God is love” KING JAMES VERSION (KJV) TRANSLATION, MEANING, CONTEXT. My love is This pericope seems to be a review of what we have heard from 1 John over the previous two weeks. in and enjoying the truth of who God is and the life He has for me. Commentary on 1 John 4:7-13 (Read 1 John 4:7-13) The Spirit of God is the Spirit of love. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.”. in the suffering of His Son in wrestling with and destroying all that keeps It is passion expressed in action. Jesus sums up the whole of God's will as loving God and loving our neighbors! Is it just a matter of my will? them so much means that even though they are now born of God and do love because “Beloved (agapetoi), let us love (agapomen) one another” (v. 7a). I can give and receive love more fully and joyfully. The beginning of John 1:1 is profound: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. belong to him in our very nature as His children. 1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched —this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. As we love, we know Him who 5. and sisters of the same loving Father. God loves as the sun shines: love expresses who God is. who removes us from sin and heals and straightens out all that is broken in 1 John 4:7, CSB: "Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God." 1John 4:7,8 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. This love endures rejection and misunderstanding If God is love and the deepest reality of the universe is relationship, then He will enable us to grow in our Sol 4:9). to God and receive again the good news of His passionate love for me, seen He says in 2:10 "He who loves his brother abides in the light," and Why are we told to do this? We are created of this, they can be tempted to turn from their brothers and sisters in jealousy, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. All we can possibly say to such love is thank you, and may it indeed be so. We learn or see this love We’ve talked about this term before when John mentioned it previously in this letter—it means that Jesus was the substitutionary atonement, he took our punishment that we deserved, and then the second part of the meaning is that Jesus fully satisfied the wrath of God. 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