Last night’s Bible study looked at 1 John 4:7-12, where John continues his emphasis on the need for us to show our true identity as Christians through the love we have for one another. We are loved by God (dear friends, beloved) and that is the source and inspiration for our love. Jesus gave His disciples a command to love (not a suggestion or an option for us to merely think about) in John 13:34-35 and said that this would be the hallmark of discipleship, the means by which others would recognise Him. God is invisible, but through the practical love of Christians, He is seen by all. Christianity, as G. K. Chesterton said, has not so much been found tried and wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried!
Our love has to be defined by God, for God is love. (1 John 4:8) We can have many different ideas about love, but all of them will be wrong to some extent. Only God can definitively define love. So often, we cannot reconcile the different aspects of God’s character (holiness, justice, wrath, love, mercy etc.) because we have a faulty view of love. We think love must always be ‘nice’, failing to see that God always acts out of love, even when He disciplines us. (Hebrews 12:7-11) We do people no favours when we paint a distorted picture of God’s love that pretends all will be saved without any need for repentance.
God gives us evidence of His love in Christ’s atoning sacrifice for us and this becomes the cornerstone of our faith, for there will be many times when we do not feel loved. This motivates us to love even our enemies (Matt 5:44) because while we were still enemies and sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8) God never asks us to do more than He has done for us. As we meditate and dwell on His love, it will move us and motivate us to love. Nothing else will do; no other characteristic is to be our identifying mark. As the Pharisees exclaimed ‘See how he loved him!’ when Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus (John 11:35-36), so love must distinguish us from all others and demonstrate to others the reality of the invisible God.