Test of Love 1

Hello Everyone,

1 John 3:9-24

⁹ No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. ¹⁰ This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not God’s child, nor is anyone who does not love their brother and sister.

¹¹ For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. ¹² Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. ¹³ Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. ¹⁴ We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. ¹⁵ Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. ¹⁷ If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? ¹⁸ Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

¹⁹ This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: ²⁰ If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. ²¹ Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God ²² and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. ²³ And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. ²⁴ The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

John in his first epistle chapter three brings out the point that our nature shows our spiritual lineage.

In other words it shows who our FATHER is.

Those who are like God are His children and if we are His children then we will display His characteristics.

And Gods number one characteristic is HIS LOVE.

That was ultimately shown in the cross of Christ.

John 5: ¹³Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 

Jesus while He was on earth communicated the character of His HEART: LOVE!

To quote one writer:

            “It is the response of the heart of God to the preciousness of each lost human soul that results in the infinite love God shows at Calvary”.

This kind of love is a love of self-sacrifice and it is based on the preciousness of the object loved.

Love is Selflessness

This “agape” (love) is:

·        self-giving

·        self-sharing

·        self-sacrificing

·        self-losing

·        self-abandonment

·        self-serving others

1 Peter 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.

I fill that God is challenging us who love each other with a friendly love because we enjoy each others fellowship, to love each other also with a self-sacrificial Love because of how precious we are to Him.

It is this love that is listed in the list of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22.

And it is produced in the heart of the saint who is yielded to the Holy Spirit.

One thing is certain-fruit never grows on dead trees.

I believe we could say with as much faith that fruit does not grow on unhealthy trees.

• The Father WILLS life.
• The Son IS life.
• And the Spirit GIVES Life.

This is the life that brings the Love that God is.

Greater Things Are Still to Come!