Bible Verse of the Day Sunday January 7th, 2024

1 John 4:20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.

Love has many worldly meanings; carnal humanity sees love as reciprocal. Many Christians have attempted to discover its true meaning through dictionaries, encyclopedias, or Google searches. The problem with this worldly carnal approach to discovering the true meaning of love is the crucial word in the Bible for love: “agape,” and is defined as an action, not just a feeling. If one reads and studies the Apostle John’s first Letter, we will discover what love truly is by what God has demonstrated.  God calls on us as His children to follow his example in our relationship with people around us. Genuine, true Godly love must be more than only talk, it must also include our walk.

It does not matter what a person declares about their love for God; someone is entirely off base speaking about loving God if that person has no love for the people around them. The Bible says we should love our neighbor as ourselves (Leviticus 19:18). The great controversy around that Bible truth is what some people want to define as their neighbors. Some mistaken Christians believe that there is a specific number of people on our “neighbor’s list,” however, we must display our love to all God loves. We may disagree with the lifestyle of some in our sphere of influence, and we most certainly must not condone sinful behavior. However, if we cross off those that we view as “sinners,” we are asking God to exclude sinners from His list of people that he loves (Romans 3:23).

This idea is enticing logic: the grander implies, the smaller. Equally, default in the lesser denotes the unfeasibility of the greater. One side of the coin cannot be proper, and the opposite is false. We do not love God if we do not love other people. The underlying question in this verse of scripture is always before us. How can we love God, whom we have never seen, when we do not love those around us that we see every day? There is an unbreakable and unchallengeable relation between God’s love and our love. It is simpler to love a visible human being than an invisible God. If we fail to follow through with the easier task, how can we expect to do the more difficult task?

The confession of love for God does not indicate that we sincerely enjoy a love for Him. We must guard against our confession of love for God without true love for our brothers and sisters. The confession of love, short of the reality of love for God and others, indicates that we do not fully comprehend nor are we capable of understanding love for others or genuinely love God. When we acknowledge our love for God, we also acknowledge love as He loves. Any other claim is nontruth. We display our love for God by our love for other people. It does not matter what we claim; we are liars if we do not love our brothers and sisters unconditionally.