What is Love?

Just as SLE has its own really cool women's ministry called Bloom, so CCCB's YF (uni-age, ABC-culture Youth Fellowship) has its own girls' group called SUPE. Actually SUPE has been around a lot longer than Bloom - since about 1996 in fact - and SUPE stands for Support, Understanding, Prayer, Encouragement - features that YF girls saw as important and valuable gifts to bless each other with as sisters in Christ. SUPE meets approximately once a term, like Bloom, and does much the same thing - seek to learn from God's word about particularly 'womanly' things.

What follows is Steph's really edifying summary of what the last SUPE covered from 1 John 4:7-21 - answering the question: What is Love?. Can I heartily encourage you not to click to your next blog at this point, but read through to the end of this post? And men, don't feel you need to shield your eyes; this stuff is unisex!


What does this passage tell us about love / God / us?

• God shows his love most clearly to us in sending his Son to die in our place for our sins (v9-10). This is the depth of His love. He did this so we could live and not perish as a consequence of our sin.
  

• God intends for us to be agents in administering His love to others; in this way, His love is 'made complete in us' or 'is perfected in us' (v12). When we show love to others, we reflect God to the world.
  

• Why do Christians love?
  

o v7 - because God is love. All who are 'born of God' (ie. Christians) are given God's Spirit to live in them (v13). God's Spirit enables Christians to love like God their Father does

o v11 - because God so loved us by sending Jesus to die for us; and v19 - because He first loved us

o v21 - because it is commanded

• We can't separate being Christian and being loving (v8, 21). They must go hand in hand. One of the most distinguishing marks of a Christian, is that they show love.

• We can't separate loving God from loving others (v20). If you claim to love God, yet don't show love to others, then your claim to love God cannot be trusted. Those who truly love God will love others also.

How are we to respond?

• Keep coming back to the Cross. Keep trying to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ (Eph 3:18), because the more we grow in our love for God, the more we grow in showing love to others. God's love is gracious, forgiving, sacrificial, selfless, patient, kind, 'beyond-comfort-zone'. This is how we are to love!
  

• Love is an action (see also 1 John 3:18). For our practical understanding, it's more helpful to see the word 'hate' in v20 as 'apathy'. We can easily try to slip under the radar of v20 by thinking "Well, I don't really hate people/that person...", but if we fail to be proactive in showing them love by our actions because we're apathetic (uncaring), then we're essentially 'hating' that person. We are still guilty of failing to love. (In what contexts / who are you possibly neglecting to love because you're apathetic?)
  

• In order to take practical steps to show love to others, it must start with the right mindset. When we go to YF/Church, are we going to serve others, or serve ourselves (ie. see what we can get out of it for ourselves)? If we're there to serve others, then we'll make the effort to welcome newcomers, 'fringe' people, people we don't know so well. We won't be exclusive in our friendship groups, because we have the common bond of Christ with every Christian.

• Realise that love will cost us (time, energy, effort, etc). But nothing will cost us more than what it cost God to send his only Son to the Cross.