1937 – Ed Keefer and John Hawley: “The Cupidoscope”

v.7 – “Beloved, let us love one another”

v.11 – “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another”

The commandment: “Christians should love one another.”

Truth: You cannot engage in the Christian life without engaging in Christian love.

v.7 – “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”

a. God is the source of all love

1. Will God judge the unrighteous one day? (2 Cor. 5:10)

2. Does God want you to express yourself based entirely on how you feel? (Pr. 14:12)

3. Does God accept all behavior? (Gal. 5:19-21)

Romans 1:18-25 – “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.”

b. Love is an attribute of God

Proverbs 15:3 – “They eyes of the LORD are in every place.”

Jeremiah 23:24 – “God decides what is good, not us. God decides how we are to conduct ourselves, not us.”

v.8 – “God is love”

Question: Does your love tell the truth or a lie about who God is?

v.10 – “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Rom. 5:8 – “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Galatians 4:4-5 – “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

vs.11-12 – “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us."

“Perfected,” Gk. τελειόω (teleioō), “to execute fully, to reach the end of, to run through”

John 19:30 – “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”