”Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (1 John 4:8-12)
Some powerful truth here that we should consider.
1. If you do not love...you do not know God.
2. God IS Love.
3. God loved us and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
4. Therefore we ought to love one another
5. No one has ever seen God
6. God lives in us IF we love one another
7. When we love like God we are complete
I want to focus on just one of these truths - God is love. It does not say "God loves", but that "God IS love."
Most fundamental and evangelical Christian organizations that I am aware of do not believe that God IS love. Their doctrine of the love of God can be summed up as follows:
God loves the world right up until the time they die without inviting Jesus into their heart. At that time, His "just" nature trumps His love and requires Him to cast all unbelievers into hell to be supernaturally kept alive and tortured in the lake of fire for eternity. This is their definition of a "just" God. THEY ARE WRONG! They do not know God. "God IS love" and He acts accordingly. LOVE WINS! Now that, is JUST.
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13)
Some powerful truth here that we should consider.
1. If you do not love...you do not know God.
2. God IS Love.
3. God loved us and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
4. Therefore we ought to love one another
5. No one has ever seen God
6. God lives in us IF we love one another
7. When we love like God we are complete
I want to focus on just one of these truths - God is love. It does not say "God loves", but that "God IS love."
Most fundamental and evangelical Christian organizations that I am aware of do not believe that God IS love. Their doctrine of the love of God can be summed up as follows:
God loves the world right up until the time they die without inviting Jesus into their heart. At that time, His "just" nature trumps His love and requires Him to cast all unbelievers into hell to be supernaturally kept alive and tortured in the lake of fire for eternity. This is their definition of a "just" God. THEY ARE WRONG! They do not know God. "God IS love" and He acts accordingly. LOVE WINS! Now that, is JUST.
“If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13)