1 John 4:7-8 - Dear friends, let us Love one another, for Love comes from God. Everyone who Loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not Love does not know God, because God is Love.
There are 3 stages of God’s Love in your life. First is the receiving. We have to understand how much God Loves us and open our arms to it. We discussed in yesterday’s blog about how great God’s Love is for us that He calls us His children. His Love is the most important thing and we must learn to receive it from Him.
Next we have to return it to Him. When ask what the greatest commandment was Jesus response was, “Love the Lord your God.” We can’t fulfill this command until we receive His Love, but once we do we must return it to Him. Loving God is the first thing we must do once we have His Love in our hearts.
As Jesus spoke about the greatest commandment He continued by stating the second is like the first, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the third thing we must do with God’s Love. We must Love people. This is where John’s message comes in. He says, “Dear friends, let us Love one another, for Love comes from God.”
He continues by telling us that if we are born of God and know God the proof will be in our Love for each other. If we do not Love people we do not know God. That sounds pretty harsh, but it is true.
“Who are you to tell me if I Love God or not?” you may ask. Think about it this way. If you truly know God, a being that is Love, and you Love Him, you will adopt His attitude toward people. God Loves people and if you Love Him you will also Love what He Loves.
In reality Loving people is Loving God. We see that as we Love God we adopt His Love for people. So by fulfilling the greatest command we also end up fulfilling the the second greatest as well.
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