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.
1 Peter 4:8
Love Covers a Multitude of Sins
8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
When you love someone, the way they you talk about them is different...You want to defend them in all things because they make you feel safe and comfortable...By loving someone, we try to become better than we are...We love because God first loved us, and is involved in our lives and the ones we love in our lives...Out of love a man will leave his father and mother and will be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh...
I believe that a only a few times in your life, you meet someone who is exactly right for you...Not because they are perfect and have never sinned, because all of us have sinned and fall short of God's Glory...So you are flawed and your beloved is also flawed...But loving helps us overlook many things...Love covers a multitude of sins...But God has made it that when you leave your father and mother love happens in such a way, that our combined flaws are fated together and these combined flaws work together to make a togetherness that forms love...