What is Love?

#40 Oct. 05, 2015

 2015 Devotional. Our goal for these weekly devotionals is to grow in humility and to grow spiritually by memorizing selected passages, putting them into context, and by applying them to our daily living. These passages are taken from: “100 Verses Every Christian Needs to Know” by Freeman-Smith. All passages are from the NIV.

I John 4:11

 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also aught to love one another.

 There was an early form of Gnosticism rearing its head at the turn of the century. John is concerned that false prophets (Cerinthus) taught that the material, the body as evil and therefore of no account. How does a body of no account break the Law? Well according to them it does not! Secondly, only the spiritual had value therefore Christ was Spirit and only seemed to have a body or Christ joined a human body at his baptism. The incarnation was thus denied and the way of salvation, Christ as our substitute on the cross, discounted. The truth is, only Christ as the Second Adam is able to stand in man’s place in God’s justice. Praise be to God!

 The first part of Chapter 4 is: “Test The Spirits”. We recognize the Spirit of truth in those who listen to us, writes John, he means here Jesus Christ and him (John) as the eyewitness. Those who do not listen to the “Word” have not the Spirit of God. Further, those who deny Christ as the “God Man” have not the Spirit of God. John calls the person who does not acknowledge Jesus as the Christ of God has the spirit of the antichrist that is now in the world (Jn 12:31-32). We overcome because the Spirit “who is in us is greater than the one in the world”. The Spirit always praises and promotes Christ. We are to be Christ like: practice his non-condemnation, to forgive, to be humble, to be merciful, to be self-sacrificing, and to always love in the power of the Holy Spirit.

 The verse we are memorizing is part of a section called: “God’s Love and Ours”, let us not be distracted by the context as important as that is. This verse is about God’s love, so infinitely perfect, so infinitely strong. Jesus said: “Greater love has no one than this that he lay down his life for his friends” Jn.15: 13. Because Jesus laid down His life for us, His friends, we then must love one another. Praise God!

 

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