February 4, 2016
Scripture Reading: 1 John 4:7-10
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Questions for Reflection:
As you read through the passage above, what word is repeated over and over? Nine times in these four verses, John uses the word love. John was known as the “apostle of love.” Love informs all he says, does and writes about. Why all this talk of love? The answer is that love comes from God and is a defining characteristic of God.
In verse 7, John says that there are two attributes of those who love. What are those characteristics? Why is it significant that we are born of God? The word is used in the Greek tense “suggesting the divine rebirth is past, yet bearing fruit in the present.” When you came to know God, how did your life change? How has your life continued to be changed based upon your knowledge of Him?
John says that “God is love.” What is the difference between saying “God is love” and “love is God”? Brian Bell in a sermon on 1 John 4 said, “you can’t say, ‘love is God’ because love doesn’t completely describe God, but God completely defines love.” What does knowing that God is love teach us about God? What does this idea teach us about how we should live our lives? Gary Burge writes in his commentary, “John is carefully defining the character of who God is and what it means to live in relation to him. To genuinely contemplate the true identity of God is to become like him. A true apprehension of the personhood of God should lead us to change how we live and behave.”
Repeatedly throughout his letter, John draws on the life of Jesus Christ to illustrate what loves means. In our world today, this idea of sacrificial love is almost counter-cultural. We are called to follow the example of our Savior. What is one practical way in which you can love another sacrificially today? In what relationships is it easier for you to love like this? In what relationships is it more of a struggle?