Love Perfected

1 John 4:7-21

Today’s text deals with the very important question of who are we going to love, and how are we to be shaped in love?  Our triune God is love, beginning within the godhead, then made manifest to us in the incarnation of Jesus.  Since God is love, he — not us, not the culture — gets to define what love is.  Furthermore, everything he does is loving.  In response to his atoning love, we respond by bearing witness to who he is and what he has done for us in Christ.  We must progressively grow in love for one another even in, especially in, our differences.  As Francis Schaeffer reminds us, “Love is the final apologetic.”