Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have 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. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:7-12)

I Won’t Do That: Will We Showing Others the Love We Experience?

1 John 4:7-12

The Greek word that is here translated as “propitiation” in this passage is a word that in the Greek translation of the Old Testament was used to describe the “mercy seat” of the Ark of the Covenant; the “mercy seat” was the place where people met God and found forgiveness. John is here saying that Jesus is our “mercy seat;” His sacrifice is the place where we now meet God and find forgiveness for our sins. The love of God that motivated this amazing sacrifice now compels us to love one another as we have been loved. Our experience of God’s merciful love enables us to have a living relationship with God, not because we are deserving of that relationship, but because Jesus died for us. As we extend that love to one another, we show the world God’s merciful love. Will we do that? Will we live like we have spent time with Jesus, receiving the merciful love of God? Will we seize the opportunities God places before us to show others the love that we experience in Christ? Or will we look at our neighbor and shrug our shoulders and say, “God, I’d do anything for You, but I won’t do that!”