Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. —1 John 4:7–12
Loving One Another Is Our Right
to God’s Love for Us.
Why is loving one another our right response to God’s love for us? There are three reasons John provides…
Loving one other is evidence of a
God
Loving one another is evidence of an
The cross shows us how much God
God took his own loving initiative to appease his own righteous anger by bearing it in his own self in his own Son when he took our place and died for us…The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself ofr man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. —John Stott, The Cross of Christ, 175, 160.
Loving one another is evidence of a
When you love one another, people can see that God continually and actively
Loving One Another Is Our Right