◄ 1 John 4 Devotional Commentary ►
1 John 4:1
We love God because He first loved us, and we demonstrate our love towards Him by obeying His command to love one another as He loved us. This can only be achieved as we abide in Him and He in us, as we rest from our strivings and submit to the leading of His Holy Spirit within.
Our love for one another is proof of our fellowship with the Father, a demonstration of our position in Christ as sons of God, and evidence of the read more...
1 John 4:2
Christendom is saturated with heretical and apostate teachings. The heretic believes but distorts God's Word and strays from the truth of Scripture, while the unbelieving apostate puts on a garment of pretence with the subtle, but deliberate intent, to lead Christians astray. Both exemplify a ploy of the enemy to prevent genuine believers from entering into spiritual maturity and the fullness of Christ.
The apostle John tells us read more...
1 John 4:3
As John was advancing in years, one of his main concerns for the Church was the increasing numbers of false teachers and demonic doctrines that were not only infiltrating the local churches, but also being accepted, embraced and believed by many gullible Christians.
John insisted that they stop believing every spirit. They needed to test the spirits to determine if they are from the true Spirit of God read more...
1 John 4:4
We have moved from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Our filthy covering of sin has been replaced with a robe of righteousness. We have been transferred from an earthly position in-Adam, to a heavenly positioned in-Christ. We have left the family of Satan to become an eternally adopted child of God and joint-heirs with Christ. In Him we are seated in heavenly places. Hallelujah!
But there is read more...
1 John 4:5
As children of God, we have the permanently indwelling Holy Spirit of God, and it is in Him that we have complete victory over the world, with abiding and eternal results. Nevertheless, we are to be on our guard against the many false and deceptive spirits that are in the world today and are called upon to test each one, however benevolent or enticing they may appear, for not all are of God.
John reminds us that they are from read more...
1 John 4:6
As Christians born of God, we are urged to know the truth and to abide by the truth, for the truth will set us free. The truth of God is set out in the Word of God which points to Christ. He is the Author and Finisher of our faith. He is the Alpha and Omega of all grace and truth: "Those who know God will listen to us speaking His Word of truth, but those who are not from God will not pay heed to us. And by this we know the spirit of truth and the read more...
1 John 4:7
To John the apostle, and his brother James, Jesus gave the name "Boanerges, which means 'sons of thunder.'" No doubt, they possessed some 'thunderous' qualities to be given such a nickname. Indeed, Luke records an occasion where James and John were so incensed that Jesus was not welcomed in a certain village, they asked Jesus, "Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?" for which Jesus rebuked them.
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1 John 4:8
What a beautiful truth it is... to know that God is love and that the love that we are called to manifest in our lives, has its source in the divine love of God. How amazing to realise the outpouring of His unique love flows through us to others because we have become his children.
However, to reverse the sentence from 'God is Love' to say that 'Love is God' as some have chosen to do, is emphatically wrong. It read more...
1 John 4:9
The heart of God is manifest in His Spirit of love. He demonstrated His love towards man in a multitude of ways, but the incarnation of His dearly beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the brightest and best signification of the love of God towards mankind. The love of God is not only demonstrated through Christ's supreme sacrifice of Himself on the cross, but is also revealed in the Father, Who sent the Son of His love to be the Lamb of God Who takes away the read more...
1 John 4:10
Having reminded us that God is Spirit and God is Light, the apostle John also now reminds us that God is Love, and each eternal quality of God by necessity must be indivisibly and eternally fused together with every other one of His holy attributes.
The essence of Who God is requires that each of His attributes are inseparably interlinked together. One single quality must never be divorced from His other holy attributes.
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1 John 4:11
The eternal God loves us in three tenses: past, present, and future, for He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. It is a divine love that cannot be compared with the inadequate love of fallen man, but is a love so penetrating that He sent the unique and only begotten Son of His love to be the propitiation for our sins.
That single act of the Father should stagger us to the core of our being, that God sent Christ as a gift of read more...
1 John 4:12
God is Spirit, and John tells us on a number of different occasions that no one has seen God at any time, apart from a brief season at Christ's First Coming, when the invisible God was made manifest to the world through His only begotten Son.
Christ had come to set up His kingdom, as foretold by the prophets, but He was mocked and crucified. He died, was buried, and on the third day He rose again from the dead. He ascended into read more...
1 John 4:13
The privilege and blessing of being indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God is beyond our comprehension, and yet God has given us the permanently indwelling Spirit as proof that we live in Him and He in us. And God has recorded this incredible gift of grace to us who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, in His Word.
In the Old Testament under the old covenant, the Holy Spirit would come upon certain people to empower them for a particular read more...
1 John 4:14
God's love is proclaimed throughout the Scriptures, and from Genesis to Revelation, we discover that God is love. We discover that His is a love that is beyond human comprehension, and a love that is rooted and grounded in His eternal righteousness, justice, long-suffering, and grace. His love for mankind is proved at the Cross of Calvary, for God sent His only begotten Son into the world to die for the sin of the whole world. And the love of God is perfected in read more...
1 John 4:15
How important it is to know what we believe and in Whom we have placed our trust. It is not sufficient to believe that Jesus was simply a good man and a moral teacher whose life should be emulated, but to know that He is the eternal Son of God Who was born into His own creation as the perfect Son of Man. It is not an intellectual assent as to His historical existence or the acceptance of His moral teachings that identify a believer, but whosoever confesses that read more...
1 John 4:16
Perhaps this verse in first John, is the verse of all verses that encapsulates the very essence of God and his plan of redemption. "We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." Maybe this is the truth that helps us understand Who God is, what He has done for us, what He is doing, and what He will continue to do, in and through all read more...
1 John 4:18
Fear, guilt, and shame cannot coexist alongside faith, hope, and love. Fear and love are a contradiction in terms, "for there is no fear in love; because perfect love casts out fear," A confident loving-trust in God cannot cohabit alongside destructive fear. Fear is the antithesis of love and the person who is fearful has not reached the mature love God desires in His children.
The immeasurable strength from the read more...
1 John 4:19
The wonderful love of God for those that trust in Him is once again laid bare in this first epistle of John. Perfect love casts out fear, and our relationship with our heavenly Father, which is founded on Christ's finished work at Calvary, should give us inner joy and a profound peace.
As His blood-bought children, we are reminded that we should have boldness in the day of judgement and not be filled with fear or concern. read more...
1 John 4:20
John has often been called 'the apostle of love' and many of his writings express the depth of God's love for man. In his Gospel, we discover the amazing things God has done to demonstrate His immense love towards us: "In that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
It was John who wrote: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but read more...
1 John 4:21
Love is a theme that threads its way through all the writing of John, but it is in the later chapters of his first epistle that he brings the important theme of divine 'love' to the very forefront of our attention: "God IS love," John reminds us, and He manifested that love towards us in the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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