For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. vv.3-4
Read chapter 5
We have read how to love others and of God’s love, and now we read of how to love God. It says flat out right here: obey His commands. Now if one just read that I would imagine someone getting all upset thinking it’s meaning this crazy cruel submission with a whip is how God commands people. This is not it at all. The following sentence for starters says His commands are not burdensome. Like a child wanting to please their parents he or she does what they ask him or her. Yes this pleases the parents and it pleases God when his children desire to please Him, but one thing my roommates parents said to me one day is that Courtney (my roommate) couldn't do anything more to make them proud of her and love her more for how much they already love her. It’s the same with God. There’s no work we can do to earn more of God’s love, so it’s not about works to make Him love us. Obeying His commands ought to be our delight to show how much we love him, but knowing that it doesn’t make him love us any more or less. I like that this verse even flips the thinking around in that it starts with how we love God and goes on how much more He loves us. He loves us so much that He overcame the world and allows us to overcome the world with Him if we are generated of Him. That seems to be man’s all in this world- how to overcome it. Praise the Lord we don't have try and fail to do it because He already did and He’s our only way to overcome it as well.
Do you try to earn God’s love? How can you change works for love to a desire to please Him? What ways do you or others try to overcome the world apart from God and how have you seen this play out?
No comments:
Post a Comment