“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” (1 John 4:7-12 ESV)
“We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (1 John 4:19-21 ESV)
This word translated “love” is agape (agapáō) which means to prefer what God prefers. For the believer in Jesus Christ it means that we are preferring to live through Christ and to embrace God’s will and to choose his choices and to obey them through his power. It means we are actively doing what the Lord prefers, i.e. we are actively obeying him and his commands to us under the New Covenant. And what God prefers is what is righteous, holy, morally pure, upright, honest, faithful, and obedient to his will.
Therefore, when we love other humans with this love, we are going to do good to them, pray for them, be kind to them, and not do against them what is evil and wicked. So we will tell the truth and not lie, and we will be faithful to our spouses and not commit adultery against them, and we will be someone who is trustworthy who does not betray the ones we say that we love. We will be who we say we are and we will not be hypocritical. And we will be morally pure in walks of obedience to our Lord and to his commands.
For this love is not human love which isn’t always love but which may be lust or pure selfishness or emotions or passions which fluctuate, and which may come from self and selfish desires and motives. But this love is from God who is love, the kind of love as was described in the paragraphs above. And it is selfless and thinks about others’ needs, and cares about others and what they are going through and treats others as we want to be treated. So this means we will be truth tellers and not liars, who love with agape love.
But if our love is lust and not love, then it doesn’t count as loving others. For love is what we do, i.e. it is shown in our actions, not in what we say. It is what we do, regardless of how we feel. Love does what is right and good and just and honest and faithful regardless of what we are personally going through ourselves, and even if the recipients of our love are truly our enemies. It is a lot like the love of a mother of small children who will get up all hours of the night in sickness and in health to care for her children.
But if we do not love God and other humans with this agape love, we do not know God, because God is love. This doesn’t mean that we do it perfectly all the time, because not one of us is absolutely perfect (complete), and we won’t be complete (finished) until Jesus comes to take us home to be with him for eternity. In the meanwhile, we are all a work in progress, who are following our Lord in obedience to his commands. But if we are not obeying him, and if we are walking in sin, instead, we do not know him.
For the whole purpose of Jesus’ death on that cross is that we will die with him to sin and live to him and to his righteousness in obedient walks of faith in him. He shed his blood for us on that cross to buy us back for God (to redeem us) out of our lives of slavery (addiction) to sin so that we will now serve God with our lives. And if our faith in him is genuine God-persuaded faith, it means we were crucified with him in death to sin and raised to walk in newness of life in him, not as slaves to sin, but as slaves to righteousness.
And in this way we should also love one another by laying our lives down in order to see others set free from their slavery to sin and to now walk in holiness and in righteousness and in obedience to our Lord, so that they have genuine hope of salvation from sin and eternal life with God. Thus, we are going to tell them the truth of the gospel and we will not withhold from them the message of the gospel, and we will not dilute and alter the message, either, in order that they like us, so they don’t turn against us.
And what is that message? Jesus said that if anyone would come after him, he must deny self, take up his cross daily (die daily to sin and to self) and follow (obey) him. For if we hold on to our old lives of living in sin and for self, we will lose them for eternity. But if for the sake of Jesus we die to sin and live to righteousness in walks of obedience to him, then we will have the hope of salvation from sin and eternal life with God. For not everyone who calls Jesus “Lord” will go to heaven, but the one DOING God’s will.
[Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23; Romans 6:1-23; Romans 8:1-14; 1 Peter 2:24; 2 Corinthians 5:15,21; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Titus 2:11-14]
Now we can only love with agape love because God first loved us and gave his life up for us on that cross to deliver us out of our slavery (addiction) to sin so that in his power we can live holy lives in obedience to him. But if we claim to love God but then we hate (despise, mistreat, treat with malice, sin against, plot evil against, denoting hostile actions towards) our fellow humans and/or other Christians, then we are liars. And so this is the commandment we have from God: “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” And this means we will not do evil to other humans, but good.
As the Deer
By Martin J. Nystrom
Based off Psalm 42:1
As the deer panteth for the water
So my soul longeth after You
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You
You alone are my strength, my shield
To You alone may my spirit yield
You alone are my heart's desire
And I long to worship You
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZv3jzOTE70
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