Muhammad listening to the Archangel Gabriel

God is Love (1 John 4:7-21)

My dear people, Let us love one another since love comes from God and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love. God's love for us was revealed when God sent his only Son into the world so that we could have life through him; (1 John 4:14; John 5:21,26) this is the love I mean: not our love for God, but God's love for us when He sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes our sins away. (Hebrews 10:12-19 & see Article 14.)

My dear people, since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another. No one has ever seen God; but as long as we love one another God will live in us and his love will be complete in us. We can know that we are living in Him and He is living in us because He lets us share His Spirit (of Holy Love).

We ourselves saw and testify that the Father sent His Son as Saviour of the world. (1 John 4:14; Baruch 4:22) If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him, and he in God. We ourselves have known and put our faith in God's love towards ourselves. God is love and anyone who lives in love lives in God, and God lives in him.

Love will come to its perfection in us when we can face the day of Judgement without fear; because, even in this world, we have become as He is.

In love there can be no fear, because fear is driven out by perfect love: to fear is to expect punishment, and anyone who is afraid is still imperfect in love. We are to love, then, because he loved us first. Anyone who says, "I love God", and hates his brother, is a liar, since a man who does not love his brother that he can see, cannot love God, Whom he has never seen. So this is the Commandment that He has given us, that anyone who loves God, must also love his brother.

ETERNAL LIFE

God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. Anyone who has the Son, has life. Anyone who does not have the Son, does not have life. (1 John 5:11,12) And eternal life is this; it is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ, (the Messiah) Whom He has sent. (John 17:3)

With love from St John.



THE GREATEST COMMANDMENT

(The Way of the Perfect)

The Messiah taught: The whole Law and the Prophets depend on these two Commandments: "The Lord your God is one God, And you shall love the lord your God with your whole heart, your whole soul, your whole mind and with all your strength. This is the greatest and the first Commandment, and the second is like to it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-40; Mark 12:29-31)

The Apostle Paul taught: "Love is the one thing that cannot hurt your neighbour, that is why it is the answer to every one of the Commandments." (Romans 13:10)