LOVE

Love

1John 2:7-11

7 Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.

8 Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.

9 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.

10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

11 But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

The Love of God is not difficult, complicated, or unattainable; the love of God is deliberate, real, and undisguised. When it touches you, you feel it. When it speaks to you, you hear it. When it appears, you see it. It does not take great knowledge to know it; it just takes the desire to want it. As simple as it is, most humans need to have it spelled out for them. Differed hope, lost dreams, broken expectations, and failed relationships are among the many encounters that have numbed the sensory of heart to attain it, or to even have the desire to want it.

This is why John uses the Greek word koinonia to describe the fellowship we are to have with God and with each other. The true Love of God cannot be fully manifested out of “not yet” healed lives suffering from broken hopes, dreams, and expectations.

Proverbs 13:12 declares that, “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick…” There are too many sick hearts in the church today; while needing love themselves, they with sick hearts are trying to manifest the Love of God under the auspice of attending the church of their choice.

We cannot know the Love of God as we should know it until we have been delivered and healed of the devastating episodes life serves. It takes fellowship with God and fellowship with saints who know and have experienced that fellowship to show us what the Love of God looks like.

This is why it is not the name of a church, or even the religious institutional affiliation we ascribe to that qualifies us to manifest the Love of God. It does not matter if we are Baptist, Methodist, Catholic, Pentecostal, or any other name we want to put on ourselves. It is the fellowship we have with God and with each other that defines who we are in Christ Jesus.

There are many religious people in the world that can manifest church doctrine without possessing the conviction in their own heart that produced that doctrine. Doctrine evolves out of conviction as a result of fellowship with God. Therefore, doctrine is not something we own because it has been quoted to us from a list; doctrine is something we live out because our fellowship with God calls for it.

We must understand doctrine does not produce fellowship with God; fellowship with God produces doctrine. Consequently, as we teach doctrine we must somehow impart our fellowship with God to others.

People are not going to understand our convictions until they experience the fellowship causing our convictions. If we do not have fellowship with God, we can teach church doctrine and fail at imparting God to others.

It is not getting people involved in church activities that saves them or bring healing to their relationships; it is when we use church activities with the soul purpose of getting people involved with God that they are saved and healed in their relationships.

It is our fellowship we want to impart to others. The love of God happens and is manifested out of loving and caring relationships as people are drawn into fellowship.

The greater our fellowship is with God the more we have to offer in our fellowship with others. This is why John starts these three letters to the church with the koinonia. Fellowship of redeemed people with the apostles and ultimately with the Father and the Son is the theme of this letter as evidenced in verse three of chapter one: “That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1John 1:3).

The Greek word koinonia for fellowship here means communion by intimate participation. The word is used frequently in the New Testament of the Bible to describe the relationship within the early Christian church.

The essential meaning of the koinonia embraces concepts conveyed in the English terms such as, community, communion, joint participation, sharing and intimacy. Koinonia also embraced a strong commitment to Kalos meaning “good and good,” or an inner goodness toward virtue, and an outer goodness toward social relationships.

Therefore, koinonia reflects the Christian faith of sharing, relationships, and community. This is also why John includes “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1John 1:1).

In other words, it is through the means of what we hear, what we see, and what we touch that brings fellowship into focus. John with chapter one brings this to our attention by describing what our fellowship with God should look like. If our fellowship with God is out of focus then our fellowship with others will be out of focus.

 We must first minister to God, to each other, then to the world. It is ministering to God correctly that we are empowered to minister to each other correctly, and ministering to each other correctly empowers us to minister to the world correctly.

This is koinonia in action and it is the commission of the church in action. Our whole purpose is to Love God and to Love people. To Love means to manifest the presence of God that is in us to others. In chapter four and verse eight John declares: “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.”

This brings us to our text and places it within the context of which John is writing to the church. The same darkness we have with God is the same darkness we will manifest to others, and the same light we have with God is the same light we will manifest to others. We can only manifest what we have.

The hope we should have is that we can say what verse eight says: “…the darkness is past, and the true light now shinneth.” Relentlessly it is true, when the darkness in us becomes the past is when the true light can shine in the present.

We do not have to fear the darkness in our past if the true light is shinning in our present. John tells us straight up; darkness is associated to hate and light is associated with love. If we have hate in our hearts toward others then we are full of darkness; if we have love in our hearts toward others then we are full of light.

As it is with God, we cannot walk in darkness and say we have fellowship with God, neither can we walk in darkness and say we have fellowship with each other. Light is the only position in our hearts that positions us for fellowship.

Hate disqualifies us from fellowship while love qualifies us, and the two are equated to light and darkness. Darkness is all about lies, denial, and hidden things; light is all about transparency, truth, and the willingness to work through it.

Love cannot work in darkness, denial, and hidden places, or maybe, it chooses not to. Love is all about light, exposure, and transparency. It is where God operates and is where we as believers must operate; otherwise, we are operating without a net.