John in his first letter spoke to the "beloved ones."  He was not writing to those of the world but to those who named the name of Jesus.  He spoke a lot about love and has revealed some things to us that are an encouragement as to our inability to properly love.  Many will argue that they do love which is no argument but a proof that there is no love.  This is because love is described in the thirteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians as something that "does not parade itself."  Love will never say that it is loving.  Therefore, to say "I love you" may or may not be true.  But to say that I love is an evidence that at best I have benevolent acts that are being masked as love, which is boasting and is not a characteristic of love.

In 1 John 4:7 he says, "Beloved, let us love one another." In this he is calling us to enter into love as he uses a first person, plural subjunctive (see Origins for a more complete explanation of this). In short, since a subjunctive portrays potential action, the first person, plural subjunctive is a call to enter into this potential action, which is here love.  Seeing that this is no command, there is no pressure.  When pressure is added by laws and regulations the flesh rises up and takes over and seeks its own, which is no love.

Seeing that John also tells us that 1) God is love, 2) love is from God, and 3) that this love was manifested only in Jesus, we must seek to enter into love by following this reality of love.  These three realities are not rules; they are facts.  If we are to enter into love they must be the foundation of how we are to enter into this love that only comes from God.  By closely examining these three facts we can then see how love is to be entered into by one of whom it is said they do not have love because they are called to enter into it and yet they are called beloved ones.

From this perspective, love is a great mystery.  The concept of love is the driving force behind much of the arts that are crafted by mankind, ranging from music to drama.  The ideal love is crafted by the hands which are moved by a heart that certainly knows the concept of what it is to be loved without condition but quickly balks at the fact that it is unable to fully express it.  The danger here is twofold, both being rooted in prideful deception. 

The first danger is found in what each person considers love to be, namely, how does it make me feel.  This is certainly another sure sign that love is not present as 1 Corinthians 13 also says that love "does not seek its own."  True love that can only come from God is not concerned with how it feels and would even be willing to lay down a life if necessary.  The other prideful danger is thinking that I have love and therefore can accuse another of not having love.  This will ultimately produce distress because of the lack of signs of love in another.  Love from God does not seek such justification.  It will act in behalf of another even while they are yet sinners or even enemies, of which the Scriptures refer to unbelievers as being both and were both even as God loved first in the saints.

There are no excuses from love as love will act in behalf of the just and the unjust, friend or foe, teammate or rival.

This is important to grasp as the beloved ones must come to a truth that declares all without Christ to be loveless.  They may be benevolent indeed but true love does not come from a man or a woman.  There will be some period of time between the manifestation of God's love and the entering into love by the beloved ones.  This gives us cause to be more understanding with ourselves first as we see that the Word of God declares Christ as the only One who has had this love of God.  We should then also be more understanding with those who do not love as if the love that we have entered into was not given to us but was a possession that was there all along.  Unbelievers will continue in this state because their unchanged nature will allow nothing else.  To them it is not hypocritical because they are judging their self by their perception of their self, which leaves no room for the thoughts of others, even God.

Believers encounter this same dilemma.  The root cause is the same as is the manifestation of its false fruits.  The difference is found in a believer's ability to masquerade their lack of love and justify their lack of love with religious jargon.   This is exactly the point that John is making here as he says first in 1 John 4:1 not to believe every spirit and in verse 2 says that we can "know" the Spirit of God because He will confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.  A proper understanding of who Jesus is marks out the following truth of John's letter in 4:9 as he says that Jesus is how God revealed His love.  When we speak of Christ this way we must conclude that an awakening of the saints of God will only be a true awakening if it consists in love.  There may be other things that accompany love but if they do they will not be clanging cymbals and their burned bodies will not have gone up in flames in vain.  God will determine both the manifestation of love and the rewards given on That Day to determine if true love has been shown.  It is only our duty to enter into love and to not act as if we know that another has or has not.

Both believers and unbelievers alike will defend their love by describing their own benevolent acts.  A believer, however, will find security in the fact that their acts were done through faith for the glory of God.  It is a frightfully embarrassing fact for any person to acknowledge that they do not fully possess love.  Love is the hallmark of all good things and the human creature will go to great lengths to show that their relationship with God is rooted in their own love for Him.  This cannot be since the forgiveness of sins is rooted in God's love and must come while we are yet sinners or else there would be no reason to receive forgiveness.  Much of the motivation that is found in the Christian world is rooted in our loving Him.  We are told by many that if we love Him we will be motivated to do good works.  Though this is true, it becomes all too easy to turn that truth around and perform good works as an evidence that we do have his true love.

An amazing truth is made known to us in chapter 4 verse 7 of John's first epistle when he tells us that everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  In this same epistle he is calling the beloved ones, who are born of God, to enter into love.  This fact allows us to see that John's use of a conjunction here distinguishes between being "born of God" and "knowing God."  We may very well know Him as Savior but since there will be a period of time between His loving and our loving it is no wonder that John's follow up statement in verse 8 is "he who does not love does not know God."  If we are to say that knowing is equivalent to our salvation then verse 10 makes no sense when it says "not that we have loved, but that He loved us."  Because of this, if we are to equate "not loving" with "not knowing", and then in turn equate "not knowing" with our salvation then none can be saved because no person has loved first.  God Himself loved first, hence the gap of time between His loving and our loving.  Being born again stands alone here and is equated with God loving us first.  Knowing God here also stands alone and is equated with our loving.

Remember, true believers are called beloved ones.  Because they are loved first this gap in time between their being loved and their loving must be addressed.  Love must be entered into.  Let's examine the process of entering into love by closely looking at the three realities mentioned above that John spoke of in his first letter.  

God Is Love

For God to say of Himself that He is love is not boasting.  For a creature to rise and say that he or she is love would not be boasting it would be a lie.  Because of God's perfect ability in all that He says and does we can say, as C.S. Lewis, that God is the greatest thing that exits and for Him not to give Himself to us would be unloving because He would be withholding the best from us.  There is no boasting in God because there are none who even compares to Him.  To even attempt a comparison would be to seek out a beautiful created thing that God Himself brought into existence, leaving no comparison and none under God compares to Satan's beauty.

God is the perfect expression of love.  To say that God is love is not to say that He has a need.  Francis Shaeffer has offered a brilliant explanation of this in that he says that God must exist as a Trinity because He says that He is love.  Love is a quality that can only be expressed to another and if God were one in all aspects He would have a need to be loved or love, making Him no God at all.  The perfect union of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit allows for the perfect expression of love wherein there is no jealousy or lack of the expression of love.  Even this concept of jealousy requires at least three beings, which God is.

To say that God is love is not to equate God with love in the sense that love is God.  This would make love equal with God.  To say that God is love is to say that love is a quality that God possesses, as a rose would possess red.  Love is not a force but a kind of intangible quality that can be entered into as we discover more of Him and come to know Him.  God possesses this love in an infinite measure.

Love Is From God

We should not feel bad about ourselves for not having something that we do not have.  Neither should we be concerned that ones that should love us do not have it because neither can they have something that they do not have.  This is very much self explanatory.

This Love That Is Only From God Is Only Manifested In And Through Jesus.

This love that we speak of that God is and that only comes from Him is only available to those who are called beloved ones.  This makes even believers doubt such a thing as it requires that no selfless act can be done by any human outside of Christ.  This is true because of what John said in 1 John 2:3-6, which is

"This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” without keeping His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word,  truly in him the love of God is perfected.  This is how we know we are in Him:  the one who says he remains in Him  should walk just as He walked."

Let us again consider the fact that a gap of time exists between Him loving us and us entering into love. The beloved may go a significant amount of time before they understand this love much less enter into it.  The key is understanding righteousness in light of His commandments.  We also considered the fact that John distinguishes between being born again and knowing Him.  How do we come to know Him?  We can know Him through His Son in whom love was manifested unto us.

We must first be settled upon the propitiatory work that Jesus did in that He died upon the cross to redeem and justify those that will be called beloved ones.  He is our righteousness and in Him is forgiveness.  As Colossians says, "The handwriting that was against us has been nailed to the tree."  There is no law against us.  Therefore, we must not see His commandments as being able to bring righteousness.  Righteousness is applied through faith in Jesus and His work on the cross of our redemption and His glorification.  Righteousness does not come through our performance of His commands.  To the contrary, keeping His commandments as believers, not for the sake of righteousness but simply because we delight in Him and His Word, of which the Psalms say that He exalts above His own name, is done because of His great love as the second chapter of Romans tells us that God's kindness leads us to repentance.

Above in chapter two of 1 John we hear him say that we can be sure that we have come to know Him because we are keeping His commandments.  This cannot mean salvation as James has told us that if there was one law that could have brought righteousness then Christ died in vain.  Keeping His commandments is what we do when we truly know and love Him and there must be an offering of the members of our bodies to Him and not to unrighteousness, as Romans 6 teaches.  And as Romans 12 teaches, we must become living sacrifices unto Him if we are to know His will, i.e. know Him.  And Jesus says it most clearly when He says, "If you love Me, keep My commandments."

"If you love" is a subjunctive in the form of third class conditional sentence that expresses that something will most likely take place subject to the condition being fulfilled.  The condition that is to be fulfilled here is the keeping of His commandments, not the loving of Him which is the actual subjunctive and will come to pass if we are His and we come to know Him through His Word, His only Son, Jesus.  This is how God's love is manifested through Jesus.  If we may subject this beautiful expression of God's love to an order, entering into love would go like this: He knows us and we become beloved ones through faith; we learn though His Word that we do not love; we seek to keep His commandments not for righteousness' sake but because we have come to know Him; we enter into love.  This is what John meant above in chapter two when he said "whoever keeps His Word, truly in him the love of God is perfected."

Knowing these things is not an exercise to be performed that we might know Him and enter into love.  It is simply learning facts that must be acted on by faith alone which in turn will produce fruit as we see the benefit of keeping His commandments.  We do not keep them to know Him.  The cross is evidence of this.  We keep them because we are beloved ones and after a certain period of time, of which God will determine the duration, we have come to now Him and we have entered into His love that is greater than all things a man or woman may do in His behalf.

His Words will then be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.  He will make even our enemies to be at peace with us.