We Ought Also...

1 John 4:11
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”

“Christianity, the Christian Gospel, is not merely truth to be contemplated. It is that, but it is also a life which is given and, therefore, a life to be lived. Also, it is not primarily dependent upon some experience or some blessing which we have received. It is, rather, the outworking of the truth which we claim to believe.

Instead of giving way to the instinctive feeling I have towards committing an act of sin, instead of speaking or acting or reacting, I stop and I talk to myself. I remind myself of the Christian Truth which I believe and I apply it to the situation. In this case, you do wait until you feel like loving other people – you make yourself love other people.

God looked down from Heaven and saw us on earth and saw our miserable actions. How could God ever love a sinner? The answer is that God differentiates between the sinner and the sin. The love of God likewise enables us to look at the people who may be offensive to us and feel sorry for them. We can say about them, ‘poor things. They are just victims of sin and Satan.’”