Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
John is furthering his command for us to love one another. The verb tense of the second love in verse 11 is actually the infinitive, meaning that the verse should probably be “So we ought to be loving one another.” There is a clear sense of present action here, saying that this should already be happening, and if it isn’t, it must start now.
Loving one another is truly important. We cannot see God. We cannot touch Him. I believe we can feel Him in our spirits, but at the present time, our interaction with Him is still pretty limited. So how do we know God is real? How do we feel God in our hearts? According to John, it is by loving one another!
This should be the ultimate impetus to follow the command of verse 11. If we love another, we get to meet with God! This is wonderful! We don’t have to burn incense for hours to meet with God, or have to slaughter a goat to know Him, or have to follow a strict code perfectly out of the shear hope to meet Him one day. No, all we need to do to meet with God is love one another!
And this isn’t a harsh god abiding with us, or a god that just wants to keep tabs on us. It is a loving God who is seeking to perfect His love in us, by teaching us to love more purely, and pouring out His own love on our lives. Isn’t it great to be a Christian?
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