Love One Another
1 John 3:11-24 (NIV)
11This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
12Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous.
13Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you.
14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.
15Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?
18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence
20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God
22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.
23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
24Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
God’s Love And Ours
1 John 4:7-21 (NIV)
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.
14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.
18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19We love because he first loved us.
20If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.
21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
