1 John 4:7-21
God’s LOVE and Our Love
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.
Matthew 22:36-40
The Greatest Commandments
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37 Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Acts 4:32-37
The Believers Share Their Possessions
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.
John 15:13
Greatest LOVE of All
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
Love is much about sharing...And love maybe all about sharing...When one loves someone they share what they have with each other...We become, in a way, one in heart, and one in mind...When we are in love, we share a life and our experiences together...When one is in love we really do not personally claim that any of our possessions are only ours...We share those with the one and one's we love...There is far more love found in sharing these material possessions, than in the material possessions themselves...In fact, love very much overshadows one's material possessions...
C. S. Lewis said this about sharing and sharing in life, “Now the whole offer which Christianity makes is this: that we can, if we let God have His way, come to share in the life of Christ...If we do, we shall then be sharing a life which was begotten, not made, which always existed and always will exist...Christ is the Son of God...If we share in this kind of life we also shall be sons of God...We shall love the Father as He does and the Holy Ghost will arise in us...He came to this world and became a Man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has — by what I call "good infection."...Every Christian is to become a little Christ....The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”...
And Lewis said this about money and half-measures, "Give Me all...I don't want so much of your money and so much of your work - I want you...I have not come to torment your natural self but to kill it...No half-measures are any good...I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there...I want to have the whole tree down...I don't want to drill the tooth or crown it or stop it, but to have it out...Hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked...the whole outfit...I will give you a new self instead...In fact, I will give you Myself...My Own will shall become yours."...
God is about everything and in everything...This is because God completely understands everything...Complete understanding is LOVE...And God is LOVE...He knows that when one shares absolutely everything they have in their life, that they understand love...LOVE shares completely and unconditionally...Half measures are not true love...Love does not give just fifty percent...LOVE gives everything One has...And in Great LOVE, we sometimes find sacrifice...The Greatest LOVE gives everything They have...And in a loving relationship both parties in love, give everything they have...They share everything in life...This simple and complete sharing of Oneself is the hope for mankind...