Love- A Christian Essential

I’ve just recently started studying 1 John in my devotional time and found that this book has many thoughts on love. Love is emphasized over and over again as an essential to identifying those who know Christ. I counted six times that the author stated that whoever says he loves God must also love his brother. We serve the God of love! How then can love be absent if He is in our hearts? I have seen it too many times. (Even my own life, I confess) A Christian girl will be telling me how much she loves God. Then, not five minutes later, she’ll tell me conspiratorially how she just hates so and so (who happens to be a fellow sister in Christ). Has anyone ever said that to you? Or perhaps you are guilty of saying the same thing yourself? I am reminded of the verse from 1 John 4:20b~ “For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.” Talk about convicting! “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1John 4:10) The fact is, ladies, we can’t make ourselves out to be Christians and not have love. “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8) Also, a few verses later the text states that whoever says they love God and yet hates their brother is a lair. They are deceived. They don’t know whom they serve. Reading these chapters in 1 John made me come to realize that the real problem why we have a problem with loving others is because we have lost touch with our Savior and forgotten who he is and what he’s done. Loving comes naturally when you are intimate with the God of love. You cannot claim to know God and then not love your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ! If you really know Christ then you know his love. When someone has personally experienced how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and really knows this love which surpasses knowledge they cannot help but be affected by it! The love that overflows in our hearts because of Christ dwelling there will overflow as a love for others. My encouragement to all of you is to draw near to God and experience his love. Know who it is you follow. Follow His example! If you know Christ, you can know how to love others! Follow in His footsteps…Love is so essential to being a Christian!

.:.:Bug:.:.