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Thanksgiving Love - 1 John 4:1 - 21

 Thursday, November 26 –

It is Thanksgiving Day, and you’re up for spending some time reading in God’s word before the day gets busy – bless you.  We’ll continue our reading in 1st John, but the devotional is much shorter.  Please read 1 John 4:1 – 21.  Come back for a short devotional look at what we’ve read.


This section of John begins with a warning to watch out for those who are false teachers and deny who Christ is (4:1-6).  Then in a long section (4:7 – 21) that takes us to the end of the chapter, he wraps up the theme of genuine Christian love.  He reminds us of the importance of loving in a God-oriented way (4:7-10), and brings us back to the reason we can love like this in the love of God for us.

If you are like me, there are times when we wonder if the church can discern the difference between truth and error.  That is what John says in these first verses – a summary from The Message Bible –

“My dear friends, don't believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you. Not everyone who talks about God comes from God. There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world… Everyone who confesses openly his faith in Jesus Christ—the Son of God, who came as an actual flesh-and-blood person—comes from God and belongs to God.  And everyone who refuses to confess faith in Jesus has nothing in common with God” (4:1-3).

Whether they write a book, speak on campuses, or preach from a pulpit. There are people who say they are Christians but deny Jesus as God’s Son – as the second person of the Trinity.  They do not have the Spirit of God and they do not know Christ as Savior.  They are being led by the Spirit of Antichrist.

Then John returns us to the number one priority of the life of the believer – to love in a Christ-like way.  Most people would tell you the “love” chapter is 1 Corinthians 13 which speaks of love eight times in thirteen verses.  Yet, 1 John 4 speaks of love twenty-seven times in verses 7 – 21.  Is love a priority for our life in Christ?  Absolutely.  How can we love like Christ?  We focus on his self-sacrificial love for us.  We were loved when we didn’t deserve it, and challenges us to love the same way.  Let me summarize what he is teaching –

1.       God is the source of Love (4:7-10).  “…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”. 

2.       We love as a way of showing God’s love in us (4:11 – 12) – “… 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”.

3.       Even though God’s love is perfect, and we cannot love completely as he does, God gives us the Spirit to help practice Godly love (4:13 – 21).  

As we yield ourselves to Christ Jesus, we discover the fruit of the Spirit is producing Godly love in us and helping us to live that love out in our relationships and the world – i.e., “his love is being perfected in us” (4:17).  It’s process, not perfection that is the goal.  The work of the Spirit to live out a Christ-like love is what gives us confidence and courage –

“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.  By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.  We love because he first loved us” (4:16-19).

It is easy on Thanksgiving Day to say “I love you” to those who we are grateful for and who have filled our lives with a richness because of their heart for us.  Yet, the love of God transcends those who love us and reaches even to those who we sometimes think are unlovely.  Today, think about one person who has been difficult for you to love, and say a prayer to God, expressing your desire to learn how to love them better.

AND, have a Happy Thanksgiving

Peace

 

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