Daily Devotional #41 (1 John 4:13-16)

Yesterday, we considered 1 John 4:7-12 in light of the following quote from Thomas Merton: “the beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”

Today, we are considering 1 John 4:13-16, which reads, "¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

Notice, that in v.13-16, there is a relationship between faith and love. In v.13-14, the Apostle John says, "we know that we abide in him." That is, we are of God and "abide in him" (have continuous fellowship with God). This is happening because God has given us of his Spirit. Not "because he has given us his Spirit." Literally, "he has given us out of his Spirit." He has poured out from his Spirit, by means of his Spirit, faith and love.

In Romans 5:5, Paul writes, "The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given unto us." God's love, the kind that accepts people for what they are regardless of what they are like, is a product only of the Spirit of God. He has given us out of his own Spirit, and, John says, that is why we know that we are of God, because the kind of love that only God can produce is in our hearts. 1 John 4:14 reads, "And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world." This kind of witnessing followed the coming of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, as the Lord Jesus had said He would.

Again, notice what John wrote. "...the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world." The Lord Jesus was the Son before he came to earth. The Father sent the Son. The Lord Jesus was the eternal Son of God, and has always been the Son. This relationship of Father and Son is an eternal relationship. It was as the Son that he came to become the Savior of the world. This is big, because it is only those who believe in Him and His finished work on the cross for the forgiveness of sin that are saved. The Lord Jesus didn't come into the world to save the world. No, no! He came to be the Savior and only those who believe in Him will be saved. 

Now, notice v.15-16, which reads,  ^"15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them." When we believe and confess that Jesus is the Son of God, it proves that God's life is in us. Where his life is, his love will be, because love always follows the life of God. And, as a result, we will love God and others.