John 3:17
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
God loves the world that He created. Anyone who believes in the Son of God will live. Those who love others, love God, and the fruit of His love shows in their character and their actions. In love we fulfill the two greatest commandments, to love Him above all and to love others as we do ourselves. We love because He first loved us. Carla
1 John 4:12-16
12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him. (NKJV)
No one has seen God that is, in His full, manifest form. John argues that although no one has seen God, His character can be seen in believers who love as He does.
In the Old Testament, figures like Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah had encounters with God, yet none involved witnessing God in His full glory—as He really is. John doesn’t consider Old Testament characters to have seen the fullness of God.
God’s Spirit not only resides in believers, but teaches them the truth concerning the saving work of the incarnate Christ (1 John 4:14). Savior of the world describes the purpose of Christ’s incarnation—to rescue humanity from sin (1:7; 2:2; 4:10). John wants his audience to understand that properly responding to Christ’s saving act requires affirmation of Christ’s existence in bodily form (1:9; 4:2). By implication, the false teachers reject the basis of God’s plan of salvation by denying that Christ was the Son of God in the flesh.
God resides in us through the work of God as Holy Spirit in the life of a believer (2:24; 3:23–24).
Those who reside in love reside in God. This phrase, which continues the thought from verse 15, represents the main point of John’s letter: A person who is truly a Christian and part of the Christian community correctly identifies Jesus as the incarnate Son of God. Christians demonstrate their belief in Jesus by loving others, admitting sin, and letting God transform their life (1:6–7; 2:10, 19). These actions also define a person as a true child of God and a member of the believing community. Faithlife Study Bible
By this looks forward to the evidence of His Spirit rather than back to the evidence of love (verses 7–11) for proof that we abide in Him, and He in us (3:24). Mutual abiding refers to the fellowship we have with God as a result of our salvation. The evidence that God abides in us and we in Him is the experience of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. In the remainder of this passage (verses 12–16), John explains how a believer can know that the Spirit is working in his or her life (verses 15, 16).
A sincere confession of belief is an indication that the confessor is saved. Abides in this context refers to salvation rather than the fellowship that results from salvation. To be a Christian, a person must believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Abides in love means the Christian lives within the sphere of God’s love. That love is both experienced and expressed through the Christian’s life. The NKJV Study Bible
1 John 3:23–24
And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment.Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.
John 1:18
No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
1 John 2:5–6
But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
1 John 2:23–24
Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father.
We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say, ‘It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.” Thank you, Mr. Rogers.
The world tilts. And when it does, there are still brothers and sisters “to feed”—physically and emotionally.
Is this topic tense? Yes.
Complicated? Yes.
“Politicized”? Yes.
And yet, not one of those is big enough to keep us from being human and sources of compassion and justice. Because you never know. Next time, it could be me. It could be you.
“This part of your life is not about being a reporter,” the abbot once told Thomas Merton. “It’s about listening to your heart.”
“Vocation,” Merton wrote, “does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be.”
“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” (Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew) Sabbath Moments
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