Theme of the Week: God’s Perfect Love
Bible Verse: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.” 1 John 5:1
Scripture Reading: 1 John 4:20-21
All throughout this week, John has been calling us to perfect love. We are called to be like Jesus—the only One, as far as we know and believe, who lived a perfect life. So how can we deal with this? How can we put together the demands of Scripture with the realities of life?
One solution to the tension between the standard of perfection and our imperfect performance is not to change the standard. God spelled this out in Scripture very clearly: Be perfect. Be like Jesus. There is nothing wrong with that standard. The problem isn’t the standard. The problem is the source.
John points to a new source to enable us to meet God’s perfect standard.
“If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him” (1 John 4:20–5:1).
Here we must remind ourselves of the kind of love John talks about. The emphasis here is not on feelings or emotions, but rather actions and deeds (1 John 3:16-18). If I can see a physical being and am not willing to meet his physical needs, how can I possibly love a spiritual being whose needs I cannot see? That’s his reasoning.
Our love for people who confess Christ is not based on their performance. If everything about you was known by others, would you deserve to be loved? No, our love for the child of God is based on our love for the Father of that child. If we love the “Begetter,” we should love the “begotten.” If we love the Father, we should love His children.
God is the source, God is love, and as we grow in our fellowship with Him, our love for others will grow too.
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