1 John 4:16 And we have known and believed the love that God has to us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. How then did Christ love us? 1. It is, as opposed to mere natural love, an all-embracing love, not swayed by feelings or emotions or preferences, but loving all who can be loved, all who may become such as can be loved, or in order that they may be loved. 2. True love must be a self-denying love. 3. True love, like the love of God, "seeks not its own." 4. True love, like the love of God, must be ceaseless. That passing, capricious love, love and unlove, ebbing and flowing, laid dry because it has just seemed full, loving one and not another, grudging fresh acts of love because it has just shown what it thinks such, soon "wearied of well-doing," such is not the love which reflects the love of God. (E. B. Pusey, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. |
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