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1 John 4:16 - God Is Love.1 John 4:16 (ESV) So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.INTRODUCTION Everyone believes that love is important, but love is usually thought of as a feeling. In reality, love is a choice and an action, as 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 shows. God is the source of our love. He loved us enough to sacrifice his Son for us. Jesus showed us perfectly what it means to love; everything he did in life and death was supremely loving. The Holy Spirit gives us the power to love; he lives in our hearts and makes us more and more like Christ. How well do you display your love for God in the choices you make and the actions you take? Life Application SB 2019 COMMENTARY PEARLS God is love. Like rays of light from the sun, love and light and joy flow out from Him to all His creatures. It is His nature to give. His very life is the outflow of unselfish love... If you are the children of God you are partakers of His nature, and you cannot but be like Him. Every child lives by the life of his father. If you are God's children, begotten by His Spirit, you live by the life of God. In Christ dwells "all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9); and the life of Jesus is made manifest "in our mortal flesh" (2 Corinthians 4:11). That life in you will produce the same character and manifest the same works as it did in Him. Thus you will be in harmony with every precept of His law; for "the law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul." Psalm 19:7, margin. Through love "the righteousness of the law" will be "fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Romans 8:4. MB 77 True sanctification comes through the working out of the principle of love. "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." 1 John 4:16. The life of him in whose heart Christ abides, will reveal practical godliness. The character will be purified, elevated, ennobled, and glorified. Pure doctrine will blend with works of righteousness; heavenly precepts will mingle with holy practices. Those who would gain the blessing of sanctification must first learn the meaning of self-sacrifice. The cross of Christ is the central pillar on which hangs the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." "If any man will come after Me," Christ says, "let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." 2 Corinthians 4:17; Matthew 16:24. It is the fragrance of our love for our fellow men that reveals our love for God. It is patience in service that brings rest to the soul. It is through humble, diligent, faithful toil that the welfare of Israel is promoted. God upholds and strengthens the one who is willing to follow in Christ's way. Sanctification is not the work of a moment, an hour, a day, but of a lifetime. It is not gained by a happy flight of feeling, but is the result of constantly dying to sin, and constantly living for Christ. Wrongs cannot be righted nor reformations wrought in the character by feeble, intermittent efforts. It is only by long, persevering effort, sore discipline, and stern conflict, that we shall overcome. We know not one day how strong will be our conflict the next. So long as Satan reigns, we shall have self to subdue, besetting sins to overcome; so long as life shall last, there will be no stopping place, no point which we can reach and say, I have fully attained. Sanctification is the result of lifelong obedience... The nearer we come to Jesus, and the more clearly we discern the purity of His character, the more clearly shall we see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the less shall we feel like exalting ourselves. There will be a continual reaching out of the soul after God, a continual, earnest, heartbreaking confession of sin and humbling of the heart before Him. At every advance step in our Christian experience our repentance will deepen. We shall know that our sufficiency is in Christ alone and shall make the apostle's confession our own: "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing." "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Romans 7:18; Galatians 6:14. AA 560-561 COMMENTARY During World War II, a group of Scottish prisoners of war were accused by their Japanese guards of stealing a shovel and were threatened with execution unless the thief confessed. Finally, one prisoner stepped forward and was beaten to death for the crime. Afterward, the guards discovered that the shovel had not gone missing; it had merely been miscounted. The Scotsman had been innocent and had voluntarily sacrificed his own life to save his fellow prisoners. The verses preceding today's promise speak of the greatest sacrifice the world has ever known - Jesus Christ, who was "the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10). Christ's sacrifice is the ultimate demonstration of love (v. 9). Today's verse tells us that God's character is the very definition of love. To abide in that love means to live in it. In the original Greek, the word meno means to be kept continually. God's love is how our life is sustained. This is the promise in today's verse: When we know and believe - that is, when we understand, experience, and trust in God's love for us - we abide in God. We live. Not only that, but when we abide in God, we are promised that God is also able to dwell in us. And when we allow God to dwell in us through the Holy Spirit (v. 13), we are transformed into the character of God (2 Corinthians 3:18) - we love like He does: "If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us" (1 John 4:12). Dear Father, teach me daily how to abide in Your love, that I may live out Your love for the people of the world. [The Most Amazing Bible Promises by Amazing Facts] CLOSING PEARL The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are fellowshipping in a waterfall of love and joy. It is nothing short of amazing that the Trinity is driven to share that joy with us. It was the Savior's mission: "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you" (John 15:11). What joy the Trinity enjoys! Misery may love company, but joy craves a crowd, and so the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit's plan to rescue humans is not only for man's sake. It is for God's sake. The Father is gathering a crowd - an inheritance, pure and blameless - to worship his Son in the joy of the Holy Spirit. "God is love" and the wish of love is to drench with delight those for whom God has suffered. Soon believers will step into the waterfall of joy and pleasure that is the Trinity. Better yet, we will become part of a Niagara Falls of thunderous delight as "God is all and in all." In heaven, we will not only know God, we will know him in that deep, personal union, that utter euphoria of experiencing him. There in heaven we will "eat of the tree of life" and be filled to overflowing with more joy and pleasure than we can contain (Revelation 22:2). Amazing grace, how can it be? That God would share his joy for eternity with me? Remember, God shares his joy on his terms; and those terms call for us to in some measure suffer as his beloved Son did while one earth (I Peter 2:21). If you and I experience hardship, it is paving the way for a deeper joy for all of eternity! Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you for inviting me into the fellowship of your joy. Thank you for preparing me for heaven's joy as I trust you in the fellowship of your sufferings while on earth. [Pearls of Great Price by Joni Eareckson Tada] LINKS FOR FURTHER STUDY 1 John 4:16 - God Is Love. http://www.abible.com/devotions/2018/20180218-1141.html http://www.abible.com/devotions/2017/20170419-2035.html http://www.abible.com/devotions/2012/20121205-2113.html http://www.abible.com/devotions/2009/20090930-2006.html Psalm 36:7-9 - The Fountain Of Life and Light. https://www.abible.com/devotions/2022/20220103-1055.html John 15:12 - Love As Jesus Loved You. https://www.abible.com/devotions/2024/20241201-1544.html LINKS WORTH CHECKING OUT https://abible.com/links/ |