1 John 4:7-21
God’s LOVE and Ours
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 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. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
Dr. Martin Luther King said these things about the injustices that remain with us today, togetherness, working together, and of love, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere...We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny...Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly...Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea...Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”...Dr. King added that, “Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that...Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it...Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it...Hatred darkens life; love illumines it.”...“We cannot long survive spiritually separated in a world that is geographically together.”...“Man-made laws assure justice, but a higher law produces love...No code of conduct ever persuaded a father to love his children or a husband to show affection to his wife.”...
When I read these quotes of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., I think of Jesus' Disciple John writings and the words in his first epistle...Summarizing John on LOVE, he writes to us and his dear friends, we should love each other, because love comes from God...Everyone who loves is a child of God...And so everyone who loves knows God...Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is LOVE...This is how God showed His LOVE to us: He sent His Only Son into the world to give us life through Him and to save us...True LOVE is God’s LOVE for us, not our love for God...He sent His Son as the way to take away our sins and be our Savior from our own sins...That is how much God LOVES us, dear friends!...So we also must love each other...No one has ever seen God...But if we love each other, God lives in us...If we love each other, God’s LOVE has reached its goal—and it is made perfect in us...We know that when we love each other we live in God and God lives in us...We know this because He gave us His Holy Spirit...We have seen that the Father sent His Son to be the Savior of the world, and this is what we tell people now...Anyone who says, “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,” is a person who lives in God, and God lives in that person...So we know the LOVE that God has for us, and we trust that LOVE...God is LOVE...Everyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in them...If God’s LOVE is made perfect in us, we can be without fear on the day when God judges the world...We will be without fear, because in this world we are like Jesus...Where God’s LOVE is, there is no fear, because God’s Perfect LOVE takes away fear...It is his punishment that makes a person fear...So His LOVE is not made perfect in the one who has fear...We love because God first LOVED us...If we say we love God but hate any of our brothers or sisters in his family-His children, then we are liars and are not following God...If we don’t love someone we have seen, how can we love God?...We have never even seen Him...God gave us this command: If we love God, we must also love each other as brothers and sisters...