GOD-Love Is The Source Of Love And Faith

"My dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from GOD.  Everyone who loves, is born of GOD and knows GOD.

Those who do not love have not known GOD, for GOD is love.

How did the love of GOD appear among us?  GOD sent HIS only Son into this world, that we might have life, through HIM.

This is love: not that we loved GOD, but that, HE first loved us and sent HIS Son, as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Dear friends, if such has been the love of GOD, we, too, must love one another.

No one has ever seen GOD, but if we love one another, GOD lives in us, and HIS love comes to its perfection in us.

How may we know that we live in GOD and HE in us?  Because GOD has given us HIS Spirit.

We ourselves have seen, and declare, that the FATHER sent HIS Son to save the world.  Those who confess that JESUS is the Son of GOD, GOD remains in them, and they in GOD .

We have known the love of GOD and have believed in it.  GOD is love.  The one who lives in love, lives in GOD, and GOD in him." - 1 John 4:7-16 

(The supreme revelation, characteristic of the Christian faith.  Other religions know of a GOD who is good and compassionate: no other religion has known that the dynamism of love moves the entire creation and that its source lies in GOD-Love.

In this beautiful text John insists on the inseparability of love of GOD and love of our neighbor.  We all know this, but sometimes we might wonder why it is so.  John gives us the paramount reason: love comes from GOD.  If we can love GOD, it is because GOD loved us first; if we love each other it is because GOD's love extends among us.

John also links love of GOD and faith in GOD: a true Christian believer is somebody who begins by "believing in GOD's love, and that GOD is love".

HE first loved us: through HIS eternal predestination [Ephesians 1:4], the sending of HIS Son and through HIS sacrifice [Romans 5:8].  If we are authentically loving, we never feel superior nor that we have merits, as do those who boast of their good works.  We simply realize that the love of GOD works through us.

The lives of those who dedicate themselves lovingly to serving the abandoned, the sick, the elderly, and those no longer useful to society are justified and so are the lives of those who withdraw from ordinary life to dedicate themselves more totally to a more intimate love of GOD.) 

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