Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 John 4:7-8, NIV)
Whom we follow
God's Example
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:11, NIV)
We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19, NIV)
What we do
Practical love
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother. (1 John 4:20-21, NIV)
Our love for God is proved by our love for one another
God's Love Demonstrates …
His love for us
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. (1 John 4:9, NIV)
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. (1 John 4:16, NIV)
What love is
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. (1 John 4:10, NIV)
His salvation
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. (1 John 4:14, NIV)
God's love for us was proved by the sacrificial death of Christ
What Love Produces
God is joined to us (4:12, 15–16)
No-one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. (1 John 4:12, NIV)
If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. (1 John 4:15-16, NIV)
We are joined to him (4:13)
We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. (1 John 4:13, NIV)
We are given confidence (4:17)
In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. (1 John 4:17, NIV)
We are protected from fear (4:18)
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. (1 John 4:18, NIV)
