12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. 19 We love Him because He first loved us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21 And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.
1 John 4:12- 21
Q & A：
- Have people ever commented that they feel good, relaxed or blessed being around you or certain believers? Explain why it is behaving abnormally when we profess to love God yet in some ways hate our brothers or sisters, and how does following the new command to love reveal our spiritual maturity or carnality? (1 John 4:20-21; John 13:34-35)
- Does practicing the perfect love of God mean that there is no room or need to correct, rebuke or instruct a person, and explain how should we speak into their lives in confronting the situation? What is the key to love with God’s perfect love and explain how the Holy Spirit, who has taken abode in us is able to empower us to behave differently and to love with His perfect kind of love? (2 Tim 3:16-17; John 14:23; 1 Cor 3:16; Eph 1:19-20)
- Knowing that the perfect love of God loves the most undeserving especially the ungodly without condoning their act, how can you be an imitator of God as His child in this aspect? Do you tend to bring up the past wrong deeds to hold it against the person and how can you practice His perfect love as when God forgives, He remembers it no more? (John 15:4-5; Eph 5:1; Rom 5:8; Heb 8:12; Matt 5:9)