The Love of God
1 How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.
4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
1 John 3:1-9

The three main writers of the New Testament letters have been referred to in different ways. Paul has been called the “Apostle of Faith” and Peter the “Apostle of Hope”. But John is often called the “Apostle of Love”. It is easy to see why. In 1 John, a short letter with only 5 chapters, John uses the word “love” (or loves, loved, or loving) 36 times (in the NIV). And when he writes about love, he sometimes seems to struggle for the words to say. In the first verse 1 John 3, he can only marvel at the greatness of God’s love.
If we belong to God, we will experience God’s love. And more than that, we will grow in our ability to love. Paul writes in similar terms in 1 Corinthians when he reminds us to seek “the greater gifts” (1 Corinthians 12:31), but “the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)
What does such a gift of love look like? In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul describes a love that is beyond our understanding –love that is patient, although we are often impatient; love that is kind, although we are often unkind; love that does not boast, does not envy, and is not proud, although we suffer from all these failings. Paul writes of a love that is beyond this sinful world, a love that only God can lead us to.
John, however, does not describe the love of God by its characteristics (patience, kindness…), but in terms of a relationship – “that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1) He admits that we do not know what a child of God will be in the future, except for one thing: when Christ is revealed, we will look like Him. Such is the love of God!
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Prayer:
• Do you feel the love of God in your life? If you belong to God, then He loves you as His son or daughter.
Ask God to let you grow in His love.