What is Love...baby don't hurt me no more

I've been reading the book of 1st John and it has been challenging me greatly. There has been much confusion over the means of salvation and the use of works within the church. Does one get saved through just faith in Jesus Christ? If they do get saved is there any work expected of them that will effect their salvation status? I think 1st John sheds some light on this subject.

"God is love."

This verse is so profound and yet so easy to understand. It basically says that God's every intention, communication, thought, interest, movement and motive is based in selfless love toward his human creation. If God could get OCD it would be definately love toward his children. There is nothing God can do out of hate for you or mild disinterest while you live on his planet. Within this love is the very motivation that God had planned his sacrificial salvation of humankind through Jesus Christ (1john 4:9).

"Everyone who loves is born of God"

This is where it gets kind of confusing because the fourth chapter of 1st John can be misinterpreted. When I first read it I thought that John was telling me that my means of salvation came from my ability to love others. That would mean I would need to have a certain love requirement to be allowed on God's team. But I actually got the two switched. We know that God is pure love and that anyone who associates, partners with or enters into His presence cannot deny that God operates only out of love. When we take the hand of faith, we enter into a journey where love is supplied to us and sustains us. We are fed only on that which is pure. It's impossible to side with God and yet have none of his compassion, mercy and growth be a part of you. It soon becomes the way in which we operate.

"If God so loved us we ought to love one another"

In the final piece of the puzzle, since we know that God is love and being in him is love, then there is an expectation that we use it. To use love is to mirror the very relationship and foundation of your salvation. There is no excuse not to love and still call yourself a member of God's kingdom (sin not withstanding). What John argues is that love should be our primary vehicle of treating others because clearly it brims from our Lord. And since it brims from our Lord, those who reject loving others and choose pathways of hatred are not showing the influences of their salvation. It would be like walking into a pool of water and coming out dry. Love becomes the badge that we wear that signifies that Christ owns us by his blood and those that don't wear it and say they know God are either confused or deceitful.

But that is not to say that we won't have sinful moments of hatred, bitterness or neglect toward our neighbor. That is the nature of our human side. I used to believe that those inklings of sin disqualified me from God's grace because of the expectation to love. That is not true! Those moments that we show hatred are speed bumps in our path, but those who truly follow God are freed from them and are taught to love. You could trip over a thousand speed bumps, but everytime God would set you right and draw you closer.

So we are called to love because that is what a relationship with God means.

Conclusion: We've heard it before: faith without works is dead. We've also heard that there is no other name under which you can be saved, but through Jesus. I wish to combine these two and say, when you are saved by Christ's rich love for you, that relationship means we love.

For more insight read 1 John 4