Steven A. Bush - April 6, 2025
God's Love: Down, Up, and Sideways
Perhaps no Biblical author talks more about the love of God and Jesus' command for us to love one another than the Apostle John. 1 John 3:1 says: "See what great 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." (NIV) And then in Verse 11 of the same Chapter, he writes: "For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another." (NIV) John goes further in the next Chapter. The chief distinguishing mark of true believers is how they love others--even people non-believers despise, find unloveable, and even hate. Jesus even told us to love our enemies! When God's Love comes flowing down to His children, it floods into them and hopefully floods out of them as well. In this world, that's just not normal, is it?!
Scripture References: 1 John 3:1-3, 1 John 3:11-14, 1 John 3:16, 1 John 3:23-24, 1 John 4:7-12, 1 John 4:15-19, 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, Colossians 1:3-6