"If I have told you
earthly things
and you do not believe, how will
you believe if I tell you
heavenly things?"
John 3:12
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Good day, let's seek the Lord........
"Holy Father God above, today we will look further into Your love and what Christian love truly is, and as we do, Lord, I pray that You will speak to us through Your word. Thank You, Father, for this special revelation that is Your word. Thank You for giving it to us that we may learn more about who You are and what You mean to our lives. Without You we can do nothing.
I pray and ask forgiveness of my sins this day, Lord, because I know my sins separate me from You. I want to have fellowship with You and I know that my sins keep me from having that deep communion with You. I pray that You will wash me clean from my sins and release me from the bondage of sin.
I pray for each lady reading today's study, Lord, that she will yearn to be with You this week and every week. I pray that You will fill her with Your Holy Spirit and encourage her as she goes through her day. Speak to her, lift her up, and walk with her this day as she encounters the many challenges that each new day brings.
In Jesus' name...amen."
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Obedience by Faith
As we conclude chapter four of 1 John, we will look at the final 2 verses that speak of loving one another.
This chapter, the Love Chapter, has taken us through the many kinds of love that come to us by God Himself:
Knowing God Through Love
Seeing God Through Love
The Consummation of Love
John has taken his readers on a journey of true love known only to those who know the Living God through Jesus Christ the Son.
He reminds his readers that if we know God, then we must love one another. To love God is to do His works so that others may know God, see God, and we can be consumed by God until perfection.
All these things John, himself, did and witnessed in his life as he walked with Jesus and was an apostle after Christ's resurrection.
From a young fisherman to an Apostle of God, this author desperately wants us to know that perfect love of God as he learned it by Christ's example.
1 John 4: 20-21-
"If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him; that he who loves God must love his brother also."
After defining what Christian love is to his readers, John now concludes this chapter by reminding us of the commandment given to us by Jesus: love one another. Jesus not only gave this commandment, but demonstrated it to us thereby leaving us with that perfect example of how to love.
Please read:
Rom 5:8
Paul writes that God Himself demonstrated this love unto us not when we were perfect....but while we were still sinners....still His enemies...still in debt to Him.
Now John wants us to remember this fact before we begin to judge one another: we were sinners when the Holy God of Israel looked upon us! Who are we to judge?
Instead, he instructs us to love as Christ loved.
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"..for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen...."
John reminds us that the people of God are clearly seen all around us. As Christians, we are not to ignore the needs of fellow believers, but instead to see them and love them.
Phil 2:2-4
Paul tells us to be like-minded...of one accord; to consider the needs of other believers ahead of our own. What is the most important need of a believer? To be clean before God.
Gal 5:1-10
Paul often wrote to other believers convicted them of their sins and urging them to return to the works of the Lord. As a result, he was often enstranged from them for a time, but he knew the greatest thing for the believer is to be in obedience.
Gal 5:13-15
He reminds his readers that they are free in Christ, but that does not mean they can do whatever they want. They are commanded to love one another
Lev 19:18
Then he leads his readers to the commandments that they are not to walk in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
Gal 5:16-18 & 25-26
Paul and John both understand that if we truly love fellow believers, we will confront their sin.
Gal 6:1
We are to confront that sin in a spirit of gentleness considering ourselves lest we be tempted by that sin as well.
Gal 6:2-5
How can we say we love someone and then watch them be held bondage to sin?
Gal 6:6-7
If we learn something wonderful through God's word, like redemption and freedom from sin, then we are to share it with one another. That is what it means to love those whom we have seen.
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"...how can he love God whom he has not seen?"
John questions those believers who do not love those before them yet claim to love a God they have never seen. How can this be?
Basically, what he is saying is you may claim to believe in God.....but do you truly believe God?
That is what it comes down to, isn't it? We can say we love God and read His word, but do we honestly believe what it is God says in His word? Because if we truly believe in the God of the Bible, we will fear Him.
Fearing Him is what makes us surrender to His commands. And His commands are perfect:
Ps 119:25-27
Ps 119:35-40
Ps 119:47-48
Ps 119:97-104
How beautiful the words of the Psalmist! Pray today that the Lord will make you love His commandments...His precepts....His law. Pray that they will be sweeter than honey to your taste!
If we claim to be Christians and love Jesus, then we have been enlightened to who God is.
John 14:9-11
If you claim to know Christ, then you must believe what God says. And if He commands us to love one another...then that is what we must do.
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"And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also."
It really is that simple, isn't it? If we love God and obey His commandments and truly believe what He says in His word...then we must love one another.
To be is to do.
To be a Christian is to love God, obey God, and show that love to others. We were created in the image of God. Therefore, we have the attirbutes of God in finite form. He expresses love perfectly, we do it imperfectly. So He gave us Christ as an example, as a way to make us perfect.
Now we can truly love one another because of Jesus.
In our next lesson we will begin chapter five of 1 John. In this chapter we will see how John reiterates what obedience by faith truly is. We will look further into what it means to believe what God says about Himself in His word.
I hope that you learned alot about love from chapter four. My prayer is that you came away with a better and deeper understanding of what it means to show God's love to those around us and how it pleases God.
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Life Application
"I have been with you so long, and yet you do not know Me, Phillip?"- John 14:9
Everytime I read this verse I am convicted because I know how Phillip felt when Jesus asked him this question.
I walked with Jesus for many years, but when it came down to it...I really did not know who Jesus was or is at all.
How humiliating.
John wants us to remember whom we serve. It isn't enough to merely say we are Christians...but to demonstrate it daily.
I thought I knew who Jesus was. I thought He was about love and compassion and forgiveness. But I had no idea that He was God incarnate...the express image of the Holy Living God.
It wasn't until 2000 that God opened my eyes to what it says in His word about Jesus...and I had been saved since 1974! All those years, He allowed me to only know so much about Himself.
And then one day He opened my eyes to His precepts. And my life changed.
My prayer for you is that through this book, 1 John, you will begin to see further into who God truly is and what it means to be a Christian. I pray that He will open your eyes to new and wonderful things in His word so that you will begin to see more of Him.
Then, and only then, can you know Him more.
And that is the greatest good.
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Until next time.........
"If Christ accepts you, you need not fear but that you will be safe; for He is a strong Lion for your defense. And if you come, you need not fear but that you shall be accepted; for He is like a Lamb to all who come to Him, and receives them with infinite grace and tenderness. It is true that He has awful majesty. He is the great God, and infinitely high above you. But there is this to encourage you and embolden the poor sinner: that Christ is man we well as God. He is a creature as well as the Creator; and He is the most humble and lowly in heart of any creature in heaven or earth."
-Jonathan Edwards 1703-1758 (Altogether Lovely, 1997, p. 46)
Blessings,
Ruth
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