Understanding Love

Daily Bread

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From John’s first epistle we read,

“My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (I John 3:18 – KJV)

“Love,” a word used over and over again, so very common, yet the word love is never fully understood unless one knows God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Unless one knows the Father and the Son they can never truly know the right definition of love.

In seeking to understand love this following text would seem to be a great beginning,

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (I John 4:10 – KJV)

John writes, “Herein is love.” And we respond, Where? And the Holy Spirit tells us that it is here, that God loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. You and I have a very serious spiritual health problem. We are a people dead in our trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), separated to the greatest degree from our Creator by them. We are a needy people, a people without any hope. In the light of this truth . . . love is best understood when it is revealed to us that . . . herein is love, that God loved us, that He sacrificially loved us, seeing our hopeless plight and knowing our greatest need, He “sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

“Herein is love” defined. The world tosses this word around so flippantly, so carelessly, so ignorantly. We, God’s “little children,” are not to be found guilty of doing the same thing.

And thus, knowing and understanding love, our response should be to give love back to our Father, doing so with a full understanding of what love really means, personally manifesting this love. How?

“Whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God perfected” (I John 2:5 – KJV)

“For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments” (I John 4:18 – KJV)

“And this is love, that we walk after His commandments” (II John 6 – KJV)

Herein is love . . . that God loved us, and (He) sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins, and herein we, in turn, love Him back by “keeping His word,” and by “walking after His commandments.”

Love can only find its true definition in God and in His sacrificial actions. And knowing that puts us in a position of understanding love.

Have a good day . . . and as you walk, do so in love for Him who has sent His Son to save you from the penalty due your sin, manifesting your love for Him by keeping His word, keeping His commandments.

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