“Love Made Visible”

1 John 4:7-12

August 19, 2007

Carl Palmer

Pastor-Teacher

⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

God is love in Himself, and we love one another because the true nature of our Father is love.

Loving one another is more than a “duty” – it is a controlling characteristic arising out of the new nature God has placed within the true believer.

⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

The cross of Jesus is the love of God stamped forever in human history.

¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

The cross not only demonstrates the greatness of His love; it also lays upon us the obligation to love one another.

¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

We are to love – because now God intends to “complete” His love in and through our love.

God’s love for us is perfected only when it is reproduced in us.

God’s “complete” plan is for His love to be experienced through His people loving one another.

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples,

if you love one another.”

John 13:35

Going deeper with the Word…

1. What do verses 9-10 teach you personally about real love?

2. Who are the “one anothers” in your life? How are you called to love them?

3. In what ways can our God, who cannot be seen, be made “visible” in your life?