Love is an action
September 2, 2019
Commentary
Everyone believes that love is important, but love is usually thought of as a feeling. In reality, love is an action. God loved us enough to sacrifice His Son for us (v.7). His love involves an action, and our love should be like His. Much that is called “love” in modern society bears no resemblance to the holy, spiritual love of God. Love has a double relationship to God. It is only by knowing God that we learn to love and it is only by loving that we learn to know God (vv. 7-8). Love comes from God, and love leads to God. “God is love,” not love is God” (v. 8). The world thinks that love is what makes a person feel good and it is alright to sacrifice moral principles and others rights in order to obtain such “love.” But that isn’t real love, it is the exact opposite; selfishness.
Jesus is God’s only son (v. 9). God’s love was demonstrated in His sending His Son, Jesus Christ to this world. Because God loves sinful people it caused Him to seek a solution to the problem of sin and is why He sent his Son to die for us (v. 10). If we trust in Christ we will not have to bear the penalty for our sins (I Peter 2:24). Warren Wiersbe says it well when he says, “We are not saved by loving Christ; but we are saved by believing on Christ (John 3:16). But after we realize what He did for us on the cross, our normal response out to be to love Him and to love one another” (vv. 11-12). It is by love that God is known (v. 12). We cannot see God, because he is spirit; what we can see is his effect. We cannot see the wind, but we can see what it can do. We cannot see electricity, but we can see the effect it produces. The effect of God is love. Because God is love, we must communicate, not only in words but in deeds.
Application
I need to see sinners as God sees them and plan to take action and communicate His love to them.
1 John 4:7– 12 (NET)
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God. 8 The person who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him. 10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, if God so loved us, then we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us, and his love is perfected in us.