FAITH CAPSULE: Loving God is not an emotional or mouth game.
1 John 3
God’s command from the beginning speaks to all: love one another. Deuteronomy 6:5 recorded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” As in the Old Testament, Jesus also requested in the New Testament, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27) Loving one another is the evidence of loving God our creator which no man has seen Him. All God’s doing is what the devil stands against. It is devil’s gain to work for man not love one another.
Loving one another is the message which has been passed out to us from the BEGINNING. The devil has been standing against man from loving one another to make it possible for man not to love God. It is written, “For this is the message that you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his works were evil and his brother’s righteous.” (1John 3:11-12)
As wrong as it is, man always claim love for God when there is no love for one another. As an acclaimed believer, not practicing righteousness is not loving other as commanded by God and it is sin before God. 1 John 3:10 buttressed, “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.”
Do you have the love of God?
The love of God is to love unconditionally, sacrificially and personally.
Personally: Christ is to be seen in us. 1John4:20-21, “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.”
Unconditional love was demonstrated by Jesus for us to learn and do like Him. With His love, He died for us while we were sinners. (Romans 5:8)
Sacrificially, our demonstration of love should be of the love of God not just talking love. 1John 3:16-18, “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. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but indeed and in truth.” Do you love God as commanded by God? Loving God is not an emotional or mouth game. God sees all hearts under heaven. Love Him indeed and in truth.
Prayer for today: Ask God for the love of God be established in your heart.