Saved and Loved

There is a wisdom that Jesus has given us to follow Him.

There are two ways that we can respond to this. We can respond with either arrogance at the wisdom that we uniquely possess, or we can respond with humility, realizing that the new life we have in Christ would not be ours if it were not given to us by God.

It’s natural for us to respond to newfound wisdom or knowledge with pride. As Paul says, knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” (1 Corinthians 8:1) John reminds us that we are secure in Jesus because God has given us understanding and has put us securely in relationship with Himself through Jesus Christ.

We didn’t obtain this relationship with God on our own: God did it for us by faith. As Paul says in another place, “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) God is not interested in us taking credit even in our own minds for the salvation that we have received. He has given us all that we have.

When John says in 1 John 5:19-20 that Jesus, “has come and has given us understanding so that we may know the true One,” and “the whole world is under the sway of the evil one,” John is calling us to compassionate love for the people around us. We are to remember our salvation and remember that God has given it to us as believers in and followers of Jesus in spite of our sins. We are to remember the great love that Jesus has poured out on us when He sacrificed Himself to pay for our sins. (1 John 4:10) That is the love that we should be modeling when we love those around us.

Of course we will never propitiate or atone for anyone else’s sins, but we can love sacrificially. We can model for others the love that Jesus showed us, and we can love them in the same way that He loved us. As Jesus said to His disciples, “Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8)

The love that God has shown us should characterize our lives.

Our whole lives should be changing because of what God has done and is in fact still doing inside us through the Holy Spirit.

1 John holds up Jesus’s death for our sins as a picture of what love looks like (1 John 4:10) and then says that we must love God and love one another and so remain connected to God.

This call to Christ-like, self-sacrificing love is not what holds our salvation secure: God does that. He is the one that we trust to secure our salvation. However, as James says, faith without works is dead. (James 2:20) The love that we show is wonderful evidence to ourselves (1 John 4:17) and to the world that God is really transforming us.

We need to remember, as John tells us, that while love should flow from our saved souls, our salvation is secure. John says, “The one who is born of God keeps him…We are in the true one—that is, in his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.” (1 John 5:18, 20)

While we are learning to love, we do not have to worry that we are going to be abandoned by God. Our salvation is secure.

We do well to remember, though, what we have learned in 1 John: love is most important. God’s love for us has secured us, and love is His command to us.

There are so many things that would tempt us to distance ourselves from God, idols that would stand in the way of all that God has for us. John, in the final words of his letter, exhorts us to stay away from them. (1 John 5:21)

What is it that keeps us from loving God with all of ourselves? These are idols. What keeps us from loving our brothers and sisters in Christ as Jesus loves us? These are idols. What keeps us from loving others as Jesus loves us? These are idols. 

The enemy wants us to follow his evil plan and be distracted by his idols, but God has given us the ability, by the ongoing presence and power of the Holy Spirit in our lives as believers, to resist these temptations. John reminds us how important this is. “Little children,” he says, “Keep yourselves firmly in this deepening relationship with God and in the path of love for those around you! This is the good life that God has for you.”

The love that God has shown us in Jesus’s death for our sins should fundamentally transform our lives. That transformation won’t be complete until Heaven, but it should be in process now. The more we focus on God and His love, the more we will become like Him until He completes that transformation in Heaven.

That should be the goal for all believers as we live our lives on earth as God’s children.