God’s love must grow

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, Because He has given us of His Spirit (1 John 4:11-13)

Beloved, if God so loved us…

1. That God so loved us is an established fact (John 3:16)
2. That we are God’s beloved in Christ is a fact to be reckoned with (Romans 5:8)
3. Since God loves us the unloving ones, we too must respond in love
   1. Toward God and His Word
   2. Toward one another as His children
4. This is expected of us in every sense of the word

No one has seen God…

1. History tells us that one has actually seen God
2. Scriptures teaches that God is invisible
3. That, however, does not make God unreal
4. The very fact that we love one another as God in Christ loved us
   1. Is the proof that God is real
   2. Is the evidence that God indeed abides in us
5. This is how God’s love poured out to us grows mature ( “has been perfected in us”)

By this we know that we abide in Him…

1. Loving one another
   1. Is how we know for sure that we abide in God
   2. Is precisely how we end up abiding in God
2. In loving one another, we also know
   1. That God abides in us
   2. That His love is mature in us
3. Such a mutual abiding between God and us is not something conceptual alone; it is really something concrete

Because He has given us of His Spirit

1. The Spirit of God is there in us to give us life and strength (Rom.8:11)
2. To love one another is a possibility with the Spirt of God
3. To abide in God as well as having God abide in us is not an impossibility with the Spirit of God

It is critical that we seek to grow in our relationship with God. Practising love toward others is how we can grow.  This too is how God’s love in us will grow mature.