Shown

I John 4:7-12 (Message)

My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God.

Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God.

The person who refuses to love doesn't know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can't know him if you don't love.

This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God.

My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!

So, love can be "told," or "said," or it can be "shown."

Which is better?

Well, that's a difficult choice to make.

Ideally, the people who love us would both say it and show it. And that's exactly what God does for us.

But of the two, if you had to choose..."show" is the hands-down winner.

"This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only son into the world that we might live through him."

Jesus is the image...the presence...the "showing"...of the very love of God.

It's a mysterious, powerful, radical, singular sort of love.

Love that fashions a whip and clears the temple when we sin and abuse that holy space. Love that stops an execution and tells the accused to "go and sin no more." Love that speaks in parables...and washes feet...and names hypocrites...and takes the nails of the cross.

Love that cannot be contained, forever dead and gone, inside a stone tomb.

What, then, does it mean to be a follower of this Jesus...the embodied love of God?

"If we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us -- perfect love!"

Perfect love.

God's presence manifest in our lives and hearts. God dwelling "deeply" within us.

That king of love comes from God. It is sanctification...holiness...love. It is God's gift to his people.

In 1904, a wonderful hymn was written that became an essential piece of what was known as the "Welsh Revival." The lyrics perhaps best describe the kind of love we hear about in I John:

"Here is Love," ca. 1904

Here is love vast as the ocean
Loving kindness as the flood
When the Prince of life, our ransom
Shed for us His precious blood

Who His love will not remember?
Who can cease to sing His praise?
He can never be forgotten
Throughout Heaven's eternal days

On the Mount of Crucifixion
Fountains opened deep and wide
Through the floodgates of God's mercy
Flowed a vast and gracious tide

Grace and love, like mighty rivers
Poured incessant from above
And Heaven's peace and perfect justice
Kissed a guilty world in love

Let us all His love accepting
Love Him ever all our days
Let us seek His Kingdom only
And our lives be to His praise

He alone shall be our glory
Nothing in the world we see
He has cleansed and sanctified us
He Himself has set us free

In His truth
He does direct me
By His Spirit through His Word
And His grace my need is meeting
As I trust in Him, my Lord

All His fullness He is pouring
In His love and power in me
Without measure Full and boundless
As I yield myself to Thee

Prayer: We cannot earn your love. You love us first, and we are forever grateful.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end. Amen.

Tomorrow's Scripture: John 15:12-15