Members of the Same Family

1 John 4:19 – 5:1
“We love Him because He first loved us. If a man say ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar. He who loves not his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? This commandment we have from Him: he who loves God loves his brother also. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone that loves Him that begat, loves Him also that is begotten of Him.”

“God’s whole work in us was designed to produce a certain type of person. He has set out to produce a new race, a new generation, and we are all to be modeled on the pattern of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the ‘firstborn among many brethren’ (Romans 8:29). We have ‘been created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in them’ (Ephesians 2:10).

Long before we love Him, we feel a sense of gratitude to God, a sense of dependence upon Him. To love God is the highest achievement of the Christian in this life. Therefore, John’s argument is perfectly right: it is easier to love the brethren whom we have seen than to love God whom we have not seen. God has loved them even though they were sinners. To know anything about the love of God is to know it means loving the unworthy, loving that which is objectionable.

Here we see the great condescension of God. He does not ask us to face the impossible task of simply loving Him. He has told us that the way for us to love Him is to love these brethren who are His. If we love them, we are loving Him. It is His love shed abroad in our hearts that enables us to do it.”