Read with Me
1 John 4:19-21 (HCSB)
We love because He first loved us.
If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. And we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his brother.
Listen with Me
John has a very simple standard to determine who is truly living in God’s agape love, who is truly in relationship with Him: does he or she demonstrate agape love for his or her brother or sister in Christ?
John’s rationale is very simple. Agape love is not something that springs naturally from the human heart. The love we manifest in our own hearts is self-centered and narrow, focused on emotions, and limited by self-interest and self-preservation.
But agape love is birthed in a human heart when a person enters into relationship with God, and receives His agape love. This in turns sparks agape love in their own heart.
If someone claims to be in relationship with God but does not evidence agape love toward his or her brother or sister in Christ, that claim is falsified. If they show animosity toward their brother or sister in Christ, treating them with disdain instead of with honor, working to bring them down instead of to build them up, which John calls hate hatred, then their claim to know God or to love Him is proven absolutely false.
This is a double tragedy, because loving one’s brother or sister in Christ is more than a standard to be strived for; it is a commandment from the lips of Jesus himself (John 15:12-14). As always, when God gives a commandment to His people, there is an implicit promise to provide all that is needed to fully obey that command. Thus, if someone falls short in this area, it is a sign that either they are not one of God’s people, or they are not availing themselves of all He has provided for them to be able to obey.
This test was vital in John’s day, with many claiming to know God and to speak for Him who were not living in relationship with Him, and were thus deluding many true believers and leading them off the way. And it is vital now, because those same kinds of people are still active in and around the Church today. So, God’s people need to be wise, not following every charismatic leader that comes along, but carefully examining the fruit of their lives (Matthew 7:15-20), verifying that they themselves are consistently following God’s commands and demonstrating true agape love.
Pray with Me
Father, I agree that this warning is vital for our days. It seems like so many in the Church today are following people who don’t obey Your commands, but who try instead to negate them, reinterpret them, or find ways around them. So many are following people who do not demonstrate agape love, but who attack those who question their teaching, engaging in harsh ad hominem attacks, name calling, attempts at canceling them, and other things that are the polar opposite of love, even the love for one’s enemies that Jesus commanded us to demonstrate (Matthew 5:43-48). Help us all, Lord, to be as shrewd as serpents and as harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16) in our dealings with others, and in choosing who to follow, so that we are not led astray. And help us to live continually in Your agape love, not only receiving it from Your hand, but living it out every day. Amen.