Note from Jesus
Dear Beloved,
You are the Father’s child!
You are precious!
The Father adopted you into Our — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’s — family. I paid the purchase price for your adoption. You are a blood-bought and blood-redeemed child of the King of Glory!
Despite your lack of perfection, you are a precious child in the Father’s family.
So is every other person who is a Christian!
The point of these words is simple. We love you. We love all your brothers and sisters in our spiritual family. We expect you to love, accept, help, receive, and value your brothers and sisters as much as you hope We will love, accept, help, receive, and value you.
Love one another!
Verses to Live
John was known for his teaching about love. He taught about the Father’s love for a lost world (John 3:16-17). He proclaimed My love for My disciples as well as My expectation that My disciples will love each other (John 15:12-17).
What follows is a collection of verses from 1 John about God’s loving you and your loving each other as brothers and sisters. Read these words. More than reading them, let them linger in your heart and commit to living them. Love one another; not just in words, but from the heart demonstrate love for each other! People will recognize that you are My disciples because of the way you demonstrate My love with each other (John 13:34-35). Not only that, but your love is one way for you to reveal God to your world (1 John 4:12).
My loved ones, in one sense, I am not writing a new command for you. I am only reminding you of the old command. It’s a word you already know, a word that has existed from the beginning. However, in another sense, I am writing a new command for you. The new command is the truth that He lived; and now you are living it, too, because the darkness is fading and the true light is already shining among you.
Anyone who says, “I live in the light,” but hates his brother or sister is still living in the shadows. Anyone who loves his brother or sister lives in the light and will not trip because his conscience is clear. But anyone who hates his brother is in the darkness, stumbling around with no idea where he is going, blinded by the darkness.
(1 John 2:7-11)Consider the kind of extravagant love the Father has lavished on us — He calls us children of God.
(1 John 3:1)The central truth — the one you have heard since the beginning of your faith — is that we must love one another. Please do not act like Cain, who was of the evil one. He brutally murdered his own brother. Why would he do something so despicable? Because his life was devoted to evil and selfishness, and his brother chose to do what is right.
Brothers and sisters, don’t be shocked if the corrupt world despises you. We know that we have crossed over from death to real life because we are devoted to true love for our brothers and sisters. Anyone who does not love lives among corpses.
Everyone who hates other members of God’s family is a murderer. Does a murderer possess the beautiful life that never ends? No. We know what true love looks like because of Jesus. He gave His life for us, and He calls us to give our lives for our brothers and sisters.
If a person owns the kinds of things we need to make it in the world but refuses to share with those in need, is it even possible that God’s love lives in him? My little children, don’t just talk about love as an idea or a theory. Make it your true way of life, and live in the pattern of gracious love.
(1 John 3:11-18)His command is clear: believe in the name of His Son, Jesus the Anointed, and love one another as He commanded. The one who follows His teaching and walks this path lives in an intimate relationship with God. How do we know that He lives in us? By the gift of His Spirit.
(1 John 3:23-24)My loved ones, let us devote ourselves to loving one another. Love comes straight from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and truly knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Because of this, the love of God is a reality among us: God sent His only Son into the world so that we could find true life through Him. This is the embodiment of true love: not that we have loved God first, but that He loved us and sent His unique Son on a special mission to become an atoning sacrifice for our sins. So, my loved ones, if God loved us so sacrificially, surely we should love one another. No one has ever seen God with human eyes; but if we love one another, God truly lives in us. Consequently God’s love has accomplished its mission among us.
(1 John 4:7-12)We have experienced and we have entrusted our lives to the love of God in us.
God is love. Anyone who lives faithfully in love also lives faithfully in God, and God lives in him. This love is fulfilled with us, so that on the day of judgment we have confidence based on our identification with Jesus in this world. Love will never invoke fear. Perfect love expels fear, particularly the fear of punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been completed through love.
We love because He has first loved us. If someone claims, “I love God,” but hates his brother or sister, then he is a liar. Anyone who does not love a brother or sister, whom he has seen, cannot possibly love God, Whom he has never seen. He gave us a clear command, that all who love God must also love their brothers and sisters.
(1 John 4:16-21)
Response in Prayer
Father, I know that Jesus taught that all people would recognize that we are His disciples because of our love for each other. Help me as I commit to demonstrating my love to my brothers and sisters as fully and completely as You have loved me. In Jesus’ name, I pray. Amen.
‘A Year with Jesus’ is written by Phil Ware.
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All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Voice™. © 2008 by Ecclesia Bible Society. Used by permission. All rights reserved.