Deeper Love
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (ESV) 1 John 3:16.
We are in the month the world celebrates love. Many people especially those who are married or in relationships expect their partners to show them material things as the symbols of their love. We get disappointed when no one offers any form of gift to us. Remember the good Lord has been showering many gifts unto us every second of our lives.
Whenever we consider all the love we receive from God, it should motivate us to love God back and our fellow brethren. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this, the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another (1John 4:7-11).
Dear one, we cannot pretend to love God if we don’t love our brothers and sisters. 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 (1John 4:20-21).
Jesus displayed the deepest love for humanity and expects us to follow his example. “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you” (John 15:12-14).
God’s example through Jesus should motivate us to love one another. “But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another” (1Thess. 4:9). Let us learn from our master who loved us and sacrificed for us. Let us also love our brethren and sacrifice for them, that is a deeper love.