"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. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for ours sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us."
1 John 4:9-12
Love is a word that gets thrown around quite a bit today. I could do a million posts on this subject and not be comprehensive or even close to comprehensive. I just want to quickly look at a couple of truths about love.
"Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."
Think about this. We are being asked to love in the same manner as God loved us, i.e. sending His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Wow! This is a tall order.
I don't know exactly how we can fulfill this completely. We are to love each other sacrificially. Love your brothers and sisters until it hurts or rather beyond that because that is what God did.
"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and His love is made complete in us."
By loving we can become the closest representation of God this world can see. If we hide our love, we hide God.
This post feels incomplete and incredibly terse, but I don't even want to try to pretend like I could ever write enough about love. I do want you to think today about what real love looks like. So, read more of 1 John and explore what real love looks like today.
God is love...we can't fully understand God, nor can we fully understand the love He has for us...but doesn't that make you want to seek Him out more? We can't grasp all of Him, so He is always showing us something new. It's so awesome.
ReplyDeletePS-the verses you chose were the same ones that stuck out to me most in that.