To Love

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  1 John 4:19 says "We love, because God first loved us." In the 105 verses of 1 John, love is mentioned more than forty times. That is a lot of verses about love in a short period of time. But with seven words, "we love because he first loved us," the apostle John summarizes his teachings on this important topic. To love is to experience the greatest human emotion and gift that any of us has to give to another human being. Love when it is perfected in the manner that God intended it to be used is a very powerful thing indeed, and to experience love in the fullness of how we are to experience it requires us to do just that, to love. Not to love based on some condition, or emotional attachment or material thing, but simply because God has given all human beings the ability to do just that to love.

  Love has its start and ending with God. He is its author, he created it out of his very nature, since God is love. It is his desire that we share and experience this wonderful gift to all humanity. Every good christian can quote John 3: 16, but what about 1 John 3: 16, " By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." So not only are we to love God before all other things, but we must also love our fellow human beings which pleases God.

  When we look at the world as we presently know it one of the biggest problems we all now face is centered around our inability to love. High divorce rates are about couples falling out of love. Genocide in the black community is all about lack of love. Homicide, suicide, fratricide, are all about lack of love. Right now somewhere in the world there are wars being fought on every front and I believe most of them could go away if the countries involved would just learn to love. Take the Palestinian, Israeli conflict, this a race of two people the Jews and the Arabs who it would seem despise each other. Throughout the years they have slaughtered each other in a dispute over territorial rights to the small country of Israel. Historically if we look at the biblical genealogy of these two groups their beginnings have origins from the same father. We know that the Arabs are direct descendants of Ishmael who was Haggars son through Abraham. And the Jews have their origins from Isaac who was Sara's son from Abraham as well. Biologically they are related through their bloodline and yet throughout history they have despised and murdered each other for years.


  All of the conflicts they have ever faced and will ever face towards each other would simply go away if they would only learn to love each other as God has proposed that we do in the book of 1 John. "Lets suppose that I understand the bible and am the greatest preacher who ever lived! The apostle Paul wrote that unless I have love, "I am nothing." There are many ways that we can see evidence of love existing in a Christians life. "Joy has origins in love, peace in your life is evidence of love, patience is evidences of love, kindness is evidence of love, goodness is evidence of love, faithfulness is evidence of love, gentleness is evidence of love. and finally self control is evidence of love." (Charles Stanley)

As we continue to grow and develop our relationship to God. An area that should shine through all the clearly is in the area of how we love our fellow mankind. To do anything less is an affront to our creator. Since God is love what better example do we need to show and demonstrate how we are required to love one another.

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