February=The Month of Love:

Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected in us. This is how we know that we remain in Him and He in us: He has given assurance to us from His Spirit. And we have seen His Son as the world’s Savior. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God-God remains in him and he in God. And we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. In this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, for we are as He is in the world. There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. And we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his brother.-1 John 4-21

February is the month of love. If you are a Christian than your life should be marked as one of love. Love for God and love for others. In stark contrast to the self-centered and destructive philosophies of false teachers and the world John unfolds the powerful reasons why Christians practice love. In 1 John 4:7-21, the apostle includes five such reasons:

1) Christians habitually practice love because God, who indwells them, is the essence of love. The gnostics (false teachers in John’s day) believed that God was immaterial spirit and light, but never defined the source of love as coming from His inmost being. As God is Spirit (John 4:24), light (1:5), and a consuming fire (Heb. 12:9), so He is love (4:7,8). Love is inherent in all He is and does. Even His judgment and wrath are perfectly harmonized with His love.

2) Christians habitually practice love because they desire to imitate the supreme example of God’s sacrificial love in sending His Son for us (4:9).

3) Christians habitually practice love because love is the heart of Christian witness (4:12). Nobody can see God loving since He is invisible. Jesus no longer is in the world to manifest the love of God. The only demonstration of God’s love in this age is the church. That testimony is critical (John 13:35; 2 Cor. 5:18-20).

4) Christians habitually practice love because love is the Christian’s assurance (4:13-16; 3:21). Love banishes self-condemnation. When a Christian recognizes in his life the manifestation of love in actions, it results in confidence about his relationship with God. 

5) Christians habitually practice love because love is the Christian’s confidence in judgment (4:17-20; 3:16-23). Confidence is a sign that love is mature. This is not to suggest sinless perfection in a Christian’s life, but rather a habitual practice of love marked by confidence in the face of judgment. Christians love, not in order to escape judgment, but because they have escaped judgment.

In conclusion, as Christians are lives should be marked by love. Love for God and love for others. When we live out our love in the midst of a dark world we will shine like bright lights in the darkness.