God’s purpose in creating us humans and giving us life is that we come to “live in love” as entirely and eternally as he does, which he makes happen in three ways:
First of all, he tells us he loves us. All through Scripture that message comes through, from making us in his image to being our Father. That’s because, as John writes in 1 John 4:16, “God is love.” Everything he is and does is love.
But how does God make us aware of that? By the second way: he shows his love for us, which he did by sending his Son, who in everything he said and did would make the love of his Father known (John 17:26).
And isn’t that how it works on our human level too? When a man seeks to live in love forever with a woman, he too does a lot of telling her he loves her – along with doing whatever it takes to show his love too. On our human level too, then, expressing and showing love are essential to making love happen.
And it never fails in kickstarting billions of marriages. Starry eyed couples fall in love and happily believe that with the kind of love they have for each other they will never fall out of love like other couples they know do. But then they discover to their shock and horror that the realities of day-to-day life in this world can make even their love wear a bit thin. The pressures of work, money, health and family troubles create tension and stress that can turn even their “unending love dial” to an icy cool.
But fortunately, according to John, God has a third way to keep love alive: it’s by God living his love in us – the same love the Father and Son have together, that has kept their love alive forever. As John puts it in 1 John 4:12, “God lives in us,” because that’s how “his love (the love that lasts forever) is made complete in us.” Whoever has that kind of love, then, “lives in God,” verse 16, “and God in him.” What keeps love alive forever, then, is trusting God to live his love in us.
But how do we know he’s living his love in us? John answers that in 1 John 3:24: “We know it by the Spirit he gave us,” and in 4:13, “We know we live in him and he in us, because he’s given us of his Spirit.” But how do we know we have his Spirit? According to John, it’s by “What the Spirit does in us”….(next blog)
