Love Comes From God
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. 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. This is love: not that
we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for
our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one
another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us
and his love is made complete in us.
This is how we know
that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of
his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be
the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God,
God lives in them and they in God. 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. 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. 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.
We love because he
first loved us. 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. And he has given us this command:
Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
1 John
4:7-21
God’s love is not a
slowly dripping faucet or a well we must dig for ourselves. It is a rushing
stream that flows from His heart into ours. Whatever our family background or
experiences in life – whether we fee well loved by others or not – we can know
love. We can draw from the Lord’s inexhaustible source to know His loving care
for us, and we can pass it on to others.
In Christ
our Savior, we are well-loved.
Nothing
is more powerful than God’s love.
Our Daily Bread –