THE RAY AND THE REFLECTION

I JOHN 4:1

A. "WE LOVE, BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US"
  1. Think, dear friends:
    1. The knowledge John had of the working of God's love - it amazes me as I contemplate it
    2. There seems to be no end to His unfolding knowledge of the manner of God's love
  2. Look at the words of our text:
    1. We love
    2. Because He loved first B. LET US CONSIDER THREE STAGES OF LOVE
  3. God's love to us:
    1. God is first - unless God had been first, we the universe would never have been
    2. The love of God to us precedes our love to God; that is what our text tells us
    3. Strictly speaking, the words of the Apostle only declare the priority of God's love over our love to Him
    4. It is His love that begets love in us. One thing may be first and the other second, but that does not mean that the first is the cause of the second
    5. "We love, because He first loved us" which signifies that He is the Divine love that created love in our own hearts
    6. The meeting point of God with man is love; this is the heart of our relationship with God - love
    7. Love is the sublimest conception attainable by man; a life inspired by love is the most perfect form of goodness man is capable of
  4. Our love to God:
    1. Our love is the heart's response to God's love; our first is secondary, His is primary; ours is reflection; His is original; ours is the echo; His the mother-tone
    2. Heaven must bend to earth before earth can rise to heaven. As the sun holds our planet in the strong grasp of it's attraction, while the earth by its very weak gravitation is also held in it's place; so does the consciousness of God's great love grasp and sustain my soul and my life
    3. Our love is the necessary and moral result of our persuasion of God's love to us; we must ever keep this truth before our minds
    4. And our love to God is the best evidence to ourselves that we are passed from death unto life
    5. When the Divine functions in our hearts we have good evidence that we have become a new creature C. LET US CONSIDER THE THIRD FACTOR OF LOVE; OUR LOVE TO MAN
  5. Man's life expands when God's love possesses it:
    1. That was the experience of Abraham - Gen. 12:1-7
    2. And that was the experience of Joseph - Gen. 39:40; 41; 43; 54. Visualize if you can how the lives of the writers of the Bible encompass the ages. Those men never dreamed that generation after generation would be influenced by them
  6. We can show our love to God and men by our loving service. The more we love the more we serve:
    1. Love cannot be stationary or inactive; it must expand its powers; that is the mission of love in this sinful world
    2. But this love is the gift of God just as truly as the forgiveness of sin is the gift of God
    3. It is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit shed abroad in our heart - Rom. 5:1-5; Gal. 5:22-25
    4. The real power of God's soul winners is the love of Jesus Christ, "For the love of Christ constraineth us" - 2 Cor. 5:14
    5. No other power in this wide world is stronger and more persuasive than the love of Jesus Christ writes Paul, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?" - Rom. 8:35
  7. But even the force of Divine love in the life of the believer can be paralyzed:
    1. If I allow the world and its pleasures to get the control of my affections, the love of God is inoperative in my life - Matt. 24:12
    2. The church at Ephesus was in trouble on the subject of the love of God - Rev. 2:4
    3. For God is love and God cannot and will not share the same possession with Satan or sin - Matt. 6:24; I Kings 18:21


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