1 John 4:7-10 says,...

Today's verses are 1 John 4:7-10, which read,

v.7 - Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

We need to start with the fact that God is the essence of love.  When we try to define love or look it up in the dictionary it should say and we should say, "God."  We do not start with our own definition or the world's definition of love but we start with the Creator of love and the Giver of love and the Definer of love.  

If God's nature is love and we are created in the image of God and being transformed into the likeness of His Son, then we are to love one another because that is essence of God.  A Christian = loving as God loves.  This is the logical and created progression of someone who turns and follows Jesus.

v.8 - The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

I have that campfire song going through my head now.  "Beloved, let us love one another...1 John 4:7 & 8."  Again, we need to start with our definition of God rather than our definition of love.  All of who God is defines the right definition of love.  When we don't do this, we get a love that can be shallow at times.

v.9 - By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

This verse sounds a lot like John 3:16.  God gave us the definition of love by sending His only begotten Son, Jesus.  God did this because God is love and so God sent Himself to show love.  The love of God came with a purpose so that we might live our lives in and with the love of God.

v.10 - In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Here again, we do not define love on our terms, but God defines it for us.  God is love and therefore He sent His Son Jesus to be the substitute sacrifice for our sins so that we would have the ability to love Him back.  God does not need our love because God is love but because God is love He gave Himself for us so we could have and would have this ability as we repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

Heavy stuff here and it will continue into tomorrow.  Let us end with a central thought to think of love defined and created by God.  Let us think of Jesus when we say the word "love."  Maybe many things that we say we "love," if we defined Jesus or God as love would make us look for another word for what we are describing.  "I love pizza" sounds sacrilegious when my definition of "love" is Jesus' mission of the cross.  All of this is given so that we would rightly define love so that we can rightly love one another.

"Lord, how I have cheapened words that should only be reserved for You or only used in the way that is in line with Your definition of the word.  May I love one another with a love that is defined by You.  I am sure that it will be a more full love than if I tried to do it on my own.  Amen."

Pastor Adam
A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Galatians #15 - Galatians 6:11-18 - "On The Road Again..."

Image
  Another week closer and it involves some more travel for the Wolfgangs.  I feel like the Willy Nelson song, " On the road again... "  I don't know if I agree with the next line though. " ...I can't wait to get on the road again. " One of the members of the church in Wisconsin calculated that I will travel well over 10,000 miles to make this transition.  Traveling mercies prayers please. Last Sunday we will look at Paul's final words to the churches in Galatia.  He brought them the gospel (good news) message of Jesus and what resulted were churches forming throughout the region.  The letter is to defend that message that our salvation comes from and is in Christ alone.  Christ's sacrifice on the cross was sufficient for the forgiveness of our sins.  The summary statement of the letter is found in  Galatians 6:15 (LSB) .  " For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. "  Translated another way earlier in  Ga
Read more

God gave us a good weather window to travel...yeah God!!!

Image
  Berthoud Pass Here we are at the top of Berthoud Pass.  It was a whirlwind week to conduct a " hand off " service in Wisconsin on 3/17 and then preach a Palm Sunday sermon in Colorado on 3/24.  We give God all the glory for this happening.  So there are two video links at the bottom of this blog.  One is for the Wisconsin service and the other is for the Colorado service.  I racked up over 12,000 in the last 7 weeks.   I love to take these pictures sitting from the front row of chairs and listening to the one God has provided for the church I had been serving for 20 months.  I now have 3 and I am so thankful for the opportunity God gave us to serve Him in this type of ministry over the last 5 years.  It has been great to add to our daily prayer list Zach in Maine, Chris in Ohio and now Stephen in Wisconsin. This was our set up for the 2000+ mile trip.  No " hiccups " except for the strong eastern winds in Kansas.  Of course everything was quite a bit dirtier when
Read more

Resurrection Sunday in a new space...Matthew 27.62-28.20

Image
  Resurrection Sunday has come and gone but it was a sweet day to be with the gathered saints of the Stillwater Community Chapel .  We are venturing through the Gospel of Matthew and this Sunday will take us back to Matthew 1.1 but last Sunday we were in Matthew 27.62-28.20.  It was a lot to cover so the white board was truly a help to keep me on track.  This year in my Resurrection Sunday message, I focused on the contrast of the cover-up story of the disciples stealing the body of Jesus fueled by a bride and the commission of speaking of a risen Lord fueled by boldness . After the service upstairs, we ventured downstairs to the lower level and had a great meal together.  The conversations around the tables allowed us to continue to talk about the passage of Scripture we covered upstairs.  Maybe this is a very informal picture of what happens at the  Waushara Community Church called the " Going Deeper " classes of the Come For More hour following the Sunday morning worshi
Read more