SFA August 3 2008 part 1

LOVING ONE ANOTHER
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By Pastor Gene Applegate

1 John 4:7-12 New American Standard Bible

7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 2No one has seen God at any time; if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.

No doubt, there is someone in your life that you have difficulty loving. This is not at all unusual; there are some people that are just hard to love.

Christians are no different. Some of the greatest divisions and misunderstanding happen within the Christian community. We like to pass these situations off as personality conflicts or some kind of social difference. We often make excuses for not loving those as we know we should.

There is a love that comes directly from God. Those who serve Him have received it. But, many are unable to apply it to others. There may be many reasons. Pride, jealousy or a vindictive spirit often hinder our ability to love.

The above Scripture says it well. We are to let the love of God be manifested within us. In fact, the Scripture makes it very clear that we should love others because God first loved us. Indeed, God abides in us when we love others. If we do not love others then, God is not in us.

It becomes much easier to show the pure love of God to others when we remember what God has done for us. He loved us when we were unlovely. He forgave our sin when we had no right to be forgiven. Eternal death was replaced by eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

When you have a hard time loving another, remember God’s great love ...

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