Today’s reading: 1 John 4:7-10
We are commanded to love one another. But we love one another not only because it is a command, not because we have no choice about it, but rather, “let us love one another, because love is of God” (1 Jn 4:7a). We are children of God. We are a people of God. We are disciples of Christ. We are a Church infused with the Holy Spirit. “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8b), and so we too must love. Love is a reflection of our faith and the reality that we are children of God, for “everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.” (1 Jn 4:7b).
Conversely, “whoever is without love does not know God” (1 Jn 4:8a). It is easy for us to say and claim we know and love God, but that would be empty talk if we failed to love one another.
How are we to love one another? Since God is love and love is of God, we look to how God has loved us. “In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him.” (1 Jn 4:9). God’s love is self-sacrificial, limitless and profound. God became man, something like the most intelligent or beautiful human being choosing to be the lowest form of insect (and even that would fail in comparison). Then God allowed himself to be ridiculed and tortured horribly, finally giving his very life on the cross, executed as a criminal. God shed His divinity and became a slave. God embraced death in order to give us life. God gave everything till there was nothing else to give. God debased and totally emptied Himself so that we might be filled. In loving one another, we are called to act in the same way.
Again it is easy enough to love God (or say we love God). But living it out concretely is the challenge. We can pray and worship and read the Bible, but the test is in how we relate to our fellow human beings. In this we look to God Himself. “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.” (1 Jn 4:10). God showed the way to loving us. In turn we respond by loving Him and loving one another.
Such love is always salvific.
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