The more I read 1 John, the more astonishing I find the implications. Let these words settle in your soul for a moment and allow yourself to be amazed with me.
“Love is from God, and everyone who loves is born from God and knows God.” Love is the sign that someone has been born anew into God’s kingdom. Everyone who loves knows God.
“The person who doesn’t love does not know God, because God is love.” The inverse is also true. One cannot claim to know God while living in unlove.
“God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them.” The way we stay close to God is by, as far as we are able, giving ourselves over to loving action in the present moment. To act in love is to remain in God.
“We are exactly the same as God is in this world.”
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear expects punishment. The person who is afraid has not been made perfect in love.” Love and fear cannot co-exist. If our goodness is motivated by a fear of punishment for being bad, we’re not living in love and our morality isn’t worth much.
“Those who say, ‘I love God’ and hate their brothers or sisters are liars. After all, those who don’t love their brothers or sisters whom they have seen can hardly love God whom they have not seen!” Love is whole, and fills us completely. If our love seems compartmentalized—given to some and not others—it isn’t really the love that comes from God. Love for God and love for humans is the same thing.
“This is the confidence that we have in our relationship with God: If we ask for anything in agreement with his will, he listens to us. If we know that he listens to whatever we ask, we know that we have received what we asked from him.” How would it change the way we pray if we took this to be axiomatic?
“We know that everyone born from God does not sin.”
