Love that is lavished on us

I John 3:1 says, ‘How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!   And that is what we are!’  God’s love for us is lavish, extravagant, unrestrained.  It is not just unconditional and never ending; it is excessive and over the top.  That is God’s love for us. 

However John continues in his letter to exalt God’s love but at the same time he keeps slipping in that because of this great love, we must love our brothers. In 1 John 3:11 he says, ‘We should love one another.’  Then in 1 John 4: 11 – 12, ‘Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.’  

It is easy to love God because he loves us so extravagantly.  He is always there, never gives up on us, never leaves us or gets frustrated with us or our weaknesses.  He is forgiving, merciful, kind.  Loving our brother or our neighbour as both the Old Testament and Jesus exhorted us to is much more difficult.  It requires that we show some of the same attributes that God shows to us; grace, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, love and perseverance.  The difficulty is that we may have to show these qualities in the face of hostility, anger, unkindness, unforgiveness and sometimes unfairness and misunderstanding.  This is much harder.

The punch line to showing brotherly love was Jesus saying, ‘A new command I give you, Love one another. By this all men will know you are my disciples if you love one another. John 13:34’ That is the hallmark of children of God; not that God loves them and they love God but that out of the love of God, they love one another.  What a testimony to the world.  Christians loving one another!  People will truly see that as we love one another, we are God's disciples.

Today let us seek to love one another even when we are not loved back. Let the love that God has lavished extravagantly on us overflow to those around us.