Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 

                                                                                                                        1 John 4:7-8 

We cannot even begin to consider living a Christian life in the absence of love. In today’s passage, John gives us a clear and concise acknowledgment of that truth. It is the litmus test for Christian authenticity…whether or not we have the ability to love. The love of a believer in Jesus Christ must be sincere, authentic, and entirely without hypocrisy (Romans 12:9). It has to move beyond the traditional parameters of only loving ourselves, our family, and our friends and move to an entirely different realm (Matthew 5:47). This kind of love must even permeate into the lives of those who hate us and persecute us (Matthew 5:44). Then and only then should we expect to be rewarded for loving others (Matthew 5:46). Perfect, agape love contains within it three powerful descriptors: affection, goodwill, and benevolence. In order for this kind of love to be present, we must be able to observe all three of these conditions.

Affection is our disposition towards someone else. This affection is not romantic love (although that can be also be present on occasion) rather it is an authentic fondness or caring for another. This feeling can include a tenderness, warmth, and devotion to another. This is a good description of what our love for God should be. But in the context of our passage today, we are to consider this affection as an accurate way of describing our love for others…all others.

Secondly, love must contain goodwill. This is our desire for another or, simply put, what we want to see happen to someone else. Goodwill towards another is having a sense of being friendly, helpful, and cooperative. It is having a desire to see good things come into the lives of those around us. Goodwill effectively drives out all jealousy, fear, and suspicion towards others. It is entirely amicable. God’s goodwill towards us is actually the basis for which our goodwill for others is to originate. Consider the following:

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him! In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

                                                                                                            Matthew 7:11-12 

Thirdly, love must be more than words. It must contain benevolent action. This is the doing portion of love. Scripture reminds us that we are not suppose to merely speak of our love for others rather our actions should be consistent with that reality as well (1 John 3:18). I believe this is what James was referring to as he makes the connection between faith and works. Consider the following:

What use is it, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but he has no works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.

                                                                                                                 James 2:14-17 

Our faith in Christ should be demonstrated in our love and devotion to serving others. Only then can we really say that we possess agape love. Of course this kind of love is impossible is our selfish, sinful, unregenerate state rather this kind of love comes only as a byproduct of the presence of the Spirit of God in our lives (Galatians 5:22-23). And that brings us to today’s passage.

“Love is from God” is John’s declaration. Any hope that we have of ever experiencing this kind of perfect love in our own lives is entirely dependent on our knowing God and being redeemed by His grace. Therefore, John boldly proclaims, “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” Likewise, the opposite pronouncement is true as well, “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” We can have religion without love. We can engage in the study of doctrine without love. We can go through the motions of mere ceremonial ritual without love. But the one thing that we cannot do without love is to claim that we know God. Why? The reason is simple. “God is love.”

There are many character traits that we can use to describe God. But if we elevate any of those traits while eclipsing the reality that He is the epitome of agape love, then we place ourselves in a position to err. There are two possible reasons why there can be a lack of love within the church.

One is that we must experience the love of God in our own lives before we can pass that love onto others. If we have not been born again (John 3:3) then we are without the love of God and apart from redemption. When we lack personal experience with the love of God through Jesus Christ, we are entirely incapable of loving others the way we are instructed in scripture.

Secondly, we may have a faulty concept of God. If we are not completely convinced that God loves everyone and that He desires to extend goodwill and benevolent love towards them, then it is only natural that a lack of caring for others would follow. As the people of God, we are supposed to have the same mindset as does He. It would be entirely illogical to care about people for which God does not care and yet claim to be on the same page (spiritually speaking) with Him. But when we understand the truth that God does love the world (John 3:16-17), that the scope of the power of the cross includes the entire world (1 John 2:2), and that God desires to see no one perish (1 Timothy 2:4, Ezekiel 18:23,32) then we are ready to become spiritual conduits through which the love of God can flow through us and into the lives of others.

God is love and the test for Christian authenticity comes as we accurately assess our ability to transfer the love of Jesus into the lives of those around us.

Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

                                                                                                         2 Corinthians 5:18-19