Pastor Chris’ Corona Quarantine Epistles to the Flock of AIC Ngong Road, in Dispersion and Isolation. 93rd. Edition.
Dear Saints of the Most High,
Today’s passage (1 John 4:20-21) concludes our cycle of love and godliness. It is a very simple restatement of what has already been said before.
Absurdity on Display (v. 20). It simply a contradiction for a person to claim to love God but hate another human being. Love for God verges on the abstract because we cannot see him. The vast majority of God’s people have relied purely on faith, with nary an encounter of the senses with God. Our five senses are all material, in the sense that they are related to the physical world. God is spirit. His state of being is wholly other. It follows that love for God is not easy to quantify. Yet we claim to love him, while we fail to love the flesh and blood right next to us, discernible through every one of our five senses. Absurd, is what it is.
Affirmation of the Demand (v. 21). There really are no two ways about it. Love for God must need an issue in love for the neighbor. This is because true love for God is transformative. True love for God is love that results from saving faith. In this, we come to appreciate the grace of God on the sinful, undeserving rebels that we were. Yet for no reason we can fathom, God saved us, at great cost to himself.
It is this love that God wants us to imitate, to love the people around us, whether we find them lovable or not.
Your Loving Pastor Chris.