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Articles, Bible studies, and sermons that contain 1 John 4:19:
I John 4:19
Excerpted from: Loving Christ and Revelation 2:1-7Now think of the pattern. It is God who takes the initiative when we are absolute and total strangers from one another. Does not Romans 3:10 say, "There is none that seeks after God. No, not one"? Nobody knows what to look for. Everybody has his own conception of God, but the God of the Bible has to reveal Himself; otherwise there would never be an acquaintanceship. So God introduces Himself through a calling, as the Bible says it, and a relationship begins. It grows as we become more aware of who He really is, and we become aware of the depth and completeness of His love for us. "We love Him because He first loved us." We begin to run into scriptures like, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, ...."
There is a reaction to us in that. We begin to come under a sense of obligation to this One who has loved us, and still loves us. He loved us when we were enemies. He set His will. He deliberated on it. He evaluated us. Even though we were enemies, according to Romans 5, He called us. And so the agape love that is part and parcel of Him came out in a calling, and He began to introduce Himself to us in a sense that we began to see that this One died for our sins. We begin to feel a sense of obligation, but that sense of obligation does not stand by itself. We begin to feel a deep sense of appreciation. Not merely obligation, but appreciation. The appreciation rises in us because we begin to recognize what we are in comparison to Him.
We begin to realize that this One lived sinlessly for 33½ years, and we can hardly go through a day without sinning. And so the combination of a sense of appreciation and awe—a realization of One living thirty-three and one-half years and never even sinning one time, of One who overcame the world, human nature, and Satan completely and totally, conquered sin, conquered death—and here we are, so weak. But He offers us life. He says, "If you'll just submit to Me for your own good, I will wipe away your sins. The debt will be paid."
We begin to realize that a sense of obligation grows, along with the sense of appreciation. You see, the attachment is getting closer and closer, and we eventually get to the place where we see and say, "I want to spend the rest of my life with this Person, and I want to continue to grow with Him." And so we enter into a covenant, which is a marriage agreement. The time is coming when God, in the analogy, shows us that we are going to marry Christ. But in the meantime we have to get ourselves ready so that when we do marry Him the differences between us will be ironed out.
So what is it that is motivating us to conform to Him and His requirements for marriage? It's the combination of obligation (agape) and affection growing out of appreciation and thanksgiving for what we owe Him. And so we are led to a complete desire to surrender to Him and to give our lives to Him, and our time and energies to Him, to conform to everything and anything He wants until we become so intimate with Him that we are one.
We love Him because He first loved us, and our love is nothing more than a response to His love for and in us. If we lose the recognition of His love for us, we lose all incentive to respond to Him, and the work gradually diminishes and eventually stops.
I John 4:18-19
Excerpted from: Love's Emotional DimensionWhat we are seeing here, in very simple terms, is probably the major reason (other than the fact that mankind is cut off from God) why we do not love more and better: We are afraid. We are afraid it is going to cost us something. We are afraid we are going to get hurt. We are afraid we are going to lose something. We are afraid we are going to be humbled. We are afraid we are going to look bad. We are afraid our neighbors will not accept us. We are afraid we are going to be rejected. We are afraid we are going to be put down. "Fear involves torment."
Do you know why there is no fear in perfect love? Because there is perfect trust. Think about that. Think about a good marriage. The mates do not fear that the other is going to run off on them, do they? Of course not. They trust one another. You see, this perfect trust is something that is developed by abiding in the relationship. Here is scriptural proof (verse 19) that this kind of love does not come naturally. It is only in anybody because God initiated it and is also the prime mover in maintaining it.
I John 4:19
Excerpted from: Passover (Part 1)That takes cooperation on our part - because God has given us free moral agency. So we have to choose. (Back to Deuteronomy 30 again.) And life becomes a matter of choices that, by faith, we will ourselves to submit to the rule - to the government - of God. So our response has to be loving obedience. We should be able to do this. In fact, the apostle John said:
He [God] stuck His neck out. It is almost as if there is no guarantee of 'a return.' But He was willing to sacrifice Himself in the hope that our response to the demonstration of His love, through His Son, would fill us with such a sense of obligation and admiration that we, in turn, would dedicate our lives in obedience to Him.
I John 4:19
Excerpted from: Faith (Part Five)Connect that with John said in I John 4:19 and it makes a lot more sense.
God gave us His Spirit. God gave us all of the gifts that were needed that made it possible for us to have His Spirit. He led us to repentance. He gave us faith. He gave us the Spirit of God when we were baptized. And so we were divinely implanted or empowered by means of His Spirit with the power or the ability, with the capability, with the right and the responsibility to keep His commandments, and the love was already there because the Spirit was there.
I John 4:19
Excerpted from: Reconciliation and the Day of AtonementHere is the pattern. Even as Christ loved us while we were enemies, so do we have to love others first. It takes humility to do this—willingly submitting ourselves to God before others and understanding why we do what we do. Then they will understand and come to love us even as we now love God—because He first loved us.
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Pentecost, Consistency, and Honesty
Praying Always (Part Five)
The Defense Against Offense
The Fruit of the Spirit: Love
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EssaysReciprocity (Part Two)
SermonsThe Feast Brings Hope
Childrearing (Part Three)
Whatever We Ask
Marriage and the Bride of Christ (Part 8)
Be Prepared
The Book of Daniel (Part One)
Tests of True Knowledge
Offerings (Part Two)
Scripture Fulfilled in Christ's Death
Assurance (Part Two): Of the Path to Glory
Our Part in the Sanctification Process (Part Two): Cultivating Love
Letters to Seven Churches (Part Nine): Philadelphia
Our Part in the Sanctification Process (Part Six): Cultivating Kindness
We are Called to Liberty
Abraham (Part Eight)
Does Doctrine Really Matter? (Part 1)
Does Doctrine Really Matter? (Part 1)
Passionate Patience
No Failsafe Needed
Forms vs. Spirituality (Part 4)
Strategies for Escaping Babylon (Part Seven)
Tithing: 'Try Me Now!' (Part One)
Judgment is a Merciful Blessing
God Expects a Return on His Investment (Part One)
The Lord's Nourishing and Cherishing
Isaac and the Day of Small Things
The Chemistry of Government
Deuteronomy (Part 3) (1994)
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part 6)
John (Part 25)
Prepare for Your Future Now
Maintaining Good Health (Part 12)
More Than Conquerors
Philippians (Part Five)
Psalm 23 (Part 3)
Strategies for Interfacing with Babylon without Becoming Assimilated (Part Seven)
Childrearing (Part Four)
No Real Love Without God
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