“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)
The book of 1 John speaks often on the subject of love, but this is not human-based love, but this is agape love, which comes from God, and which prefers what God prefers, which is all that is holy, righteous, just, morally pure, upright, godly, faithful, honest, trustworthy, and obedient to our Lord and to his commands. So, when we love with this kind of love we are preferring to live through Christ, and to choose his choices, and to obey them in his power and strength and wisdom.
And because we love God and others with this kind of love, we will not disobey the Lord, in practice, and we will not willfully and deliberately and habitually sin against the Lord and against other humans. But we will do for others what is best for them in the eyes of the Lord. So we won’t lie to them, even with what many call “white lies,” even if the lies make them feel better. And deliberately withholding the truth that is due anyone, for the whole purpose to deceive, or so they will like us, is also lying to them.
Now we can only love others with this kind of love if we are in genuine relationship with Jesus Christ through obedient walks of faith in our Lord Jesus, in the power of God, by the grace of God. For this love comes from God and is not of the flesh of man. So when this says that “whoever loves has been born of God and knows God,” this is not speaking of human love, but of this love which is of God. For if we walk in sin and not in obedience to our Lord, we don’t know God (1 John 1:5-10; 1 John 2:3-6; 1 John 3:4-10).
And this is one of the reasons why it is critical that we read the Scriptures in their full context, for if we read this independent of the whole of 1 John, we might arrive at the conclusion that if we love with human love that it means that we are born of God and that we know God, but which would not be true to the teachings of the book of 1 John, as a whole, and which would not be true to the teachings of the New Testament, as a whole. So context is critical to us having correct understandings of what the Scriptures are teaching.
So, if our lives are totally absent of this agape love, then that would be a good indication that we are not really born of God, and that we don’t know God, for if his Spirit truly lives within us, and if we are walking by faith in the Lord Jesus, we should be those who love God and who love our fellow humans with this love that comes from God. At least it is an indication that we have drifted away from our pure devotion to the Lord Jesus and that we need to be brought back into fellowship with God via genuine repentance.
Now, this is love, that God the Father sent his only begotten Son Jesus Christ into the world for the ultimate purpose to die on a cross for our sins. For Jesus Christ, who is God, the second person of our triune God – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – gave his life up for us on that cross in order to put our sins to death with him, and that he might be resurrected from the dead in victory over darkness, sin, death, hell, and Satan, on our behalf, so that we can now die to sin and live to righteousness, by the grace of God.
For by genuine God-persuaded and God-gifted faith in Jesus Christ, we are crucified with Christ in death to sin, and we are raised with Christ to walk in newness of life in him, no longer to live as slaves to sin, but now as slaves to God and to his righteousness. Therefore we are not to let sin reign in our mortal bodies to make us obey its desires. For if sin is what we obey, it leads to death, but if obedience to God is what we obey, it leads to righteousness and to sanctification, and its end is eternal life with Christ (Romans 6:1-23).
Now not one of us can come to genuine faith in Jesus Christ of our own accord. We can only come to faith in the Lord if God the Father first draws us to Christ, i.e. if he first persuades us as to his holiness and righteousness and of our sinfulness and of our need to repent of our sins and to surrender our lives to the Lord in walks of obedience to him and in holy living. For this faith is gifted to us by God, and it is not of our own doing, and thus we do not get to determine what this faith looks like. Only God determines that.
Now 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 Jesus’ sake we deny self, die daily to sin, and follow him in walks of obedience to his commands, then we have eternal life in him. For he said that not everyone who calls him “Lord” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one doing the will of God the Father who is in heaven.
[Hebrews 12:1-2; Ephesians 2:8-10; John 1:12-13; John 6:44; Acts 26:18; Romans 1:18-32; Romans 6:1-23; Luke 9:23-26; Matthew 7:21-23]
So, the whole purpose of our faith in Jesus Christ is not just so we can be forgiven our sins and so that we can go to heaven when we die. It is that we will die with him to sin and now live to him and to his righteousness in walks of faith and obedience to him and to his commands, and no longer in walks of deliberate and habitual sin against our Lord. And it is so that we will love God and that we will love our fellow humans with the love of God, and that we will do good to others and not evil, and all for the glory of God.
In Harmony
An Original Work / September 2, 2012
Based off Ro. 12:9-21; 1 Pet. 3:8-17
Love each other truly.
Cling to what is good.
Hate all that is evil.
Never lack in zeal.
Serve the Lord with fervor.
Joyful in hope be;
Patient in affliction;
Praying faithfully.
Honor one another.
Live in harmony.
Share with all God’s people
Who are found in need.
Do not be conceited.
Sympathetic be.
Love, and show compassion
In humility.
Keep your tongue from evil.
Peaceful you must be.
Honor one another.
Live in harmony.
God sees who are righteous;
Listens to their prayers.
But He’s against evil –
Is His to avenge.
Do not fear what they fear.
Suffer patiently.
In your hearts, make Christ Lord.
Serve Him faithfully.
Honor one another.
Live in harmony.
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