Love As A Command

A brief study of 1 John 4:7-8 led me to some thoughts I thought I'd share with you who read this.  The words that are centered and in bold letters are the lines of the scriptural passage; the rest are my thoughts and scriptural connections.

Beloved, let us love one another.

They will know you are my disciples by your love for one another.  This is my command:  that you love one another.  So, love is a “command.”  However:

Love comes from God

How do we access that love? 

Does it somehow “flow through us?”

Is it “deposited in us?”

Everyone that loves is born of God and knows God.

*Note:  This does not say, “Everyone who speaks in tongues is born of God, and knows God.”  Many people who speak in tongues are quite unloving and arrogant.  Yet, 1 Cor. 13 begins with the words, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a resounding gong, or clanging cymbal.”  In other words, in God’s kingdom, speaking in tongues is useless without love.

He who does not love does not know God.

Love is not optional, it is imperative!  It is the evidence that you are in Christ, and in the Father.  We often judge holiness on "purity of living," but it should first produce love in us.  Love comes from God, but we are commanded to love.  He always equips us to do what He calls us to do; but never forces us to do.  Hmmm...