This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions and Day 2 of our look together through the
4th chapter of 1 John. We're going to begin at verse 7 today, verses 7 to 10.
And as we enter into this part of 1 John chapter 4, we are entering into what is
called by some the best description of love you'll find in all literature, in
all of the Bible.

I know that 1 Corinthians 13 is an incredible description of love and 1 John
chapter 4 is right up there with it. It's all about what love is and what love
does, how love acts and real love in your life. I'd like to divide it up over
the next few days together according to 5 keys to living a life of love.

How do I unlock real love in my life? Here are 5 keys, 5 truths I need to know,
5 ways that I need to act. Let us love one another, this passage is going to
begin.

And the question is, how do I get there? How do I become that kind of a person
who loves other people? 5 keys, key number 1, love comes from God.

When I recognize that, that begins to unlock real love in my life. Love comes
from God, not from some emotion within, not from some training in my life, not
from some mentor even in my life. Oh, I can learn things from training and from
mentors and I can be informed even by my emotions sometimes, but God is the
source.

First John chapter 4 verses 7 and 8, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for
love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

" Now first as we walk into this, you have to define love. Love is not a
feeling, it is an action. Oh, it produces feelings, but it is not a feeling.

How do I know that? Well, you can't command a feeling, but we are commanded to
love. You can command an action, we are commanded to love.

How do I know that? When he talks about love here he says, "Everyone who loves
has been born of God, anyone who does not love does not know God. " There are a
lot of people who don't love God who have feelings of sentiment.

Everyone who doesn't know God has feelings of sentiment. But this kind of love,
this love in action, this unselfish sacrificial love towards other people, that
can only come from God. He is the source of that kind of love.

Love is not a sentiment, it is a commandment. It is not a desire, simply a
desire. It is a decision in our lives.

It is a command in our lives. Everyone who loves is born of God. Whoever does
not love is not born of God because he says, "God is love.

" You see, that's pretty clear. That's pretty black and white. In fact,
throughout this passage John is going to talk in black and white ways about love
that scares some of us because we wonder, "Well, then am I included in love?

" As we walk through the definition of love in this, you're going to find that
either you're in or you're out based on your relationship with Jesus Christ.
Now, none of us are perfect. I want to start with that.

All of us are growing. We're going to get to that towards the end of this
chapter. But the question is, is love in my life or is it not in my life?

God is love. And if love is in my life, it's because of him. If it's not in my
life, it's because he's not in my life.

How do I know that? How do I know that God is love? The only way I know is by
step two in unlocking real love in my life.

Truth number two, I know it because God showed his love. Number one, love comes
from God. Number two, God showed his love.

Verses nine and 10, let me read them for you. This is how God showed his love
among us. He sent his one and only son into the world that we might live through
him.

This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an
atoning sacrifice for our sins. A lot of us have known and memorized John 3, 16,
for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. These verses
mirror that incredibly powerful verse in scripture.

This is how God showed his love. He not only talked about it, not only wrote
about it, not only prophesied about it. He showed it to us.

He sent his one and only son, God in human flesh. That's how I know. Jesus
really walked this earth.

Jesus really died on a cross. Jesus really was put into a tomb. And Jesus really
was resurrected from the dead.

And that shows me the reality of love. And so John says, so this is love, not
that we loved God, but that he loved us. God showed his love.

And when I recognize that love, that draws love out of me. This is an incredibly
important verse if you want to love in your life, if I want to love in my life.
In defining love here, you have to understand the meaning of this word.

Not that we loved God, but that he loved us. He uses a word, a Greek word for
love that you may have heard, the word agape. He's talking about agape love
here.

You may know that there are three Greek words for love that are very important
to understand when reading the New Testament. You may never have thought about
how important they are when it comes to our relationship with God. Those three
words are eros, phileo, and agape.

Eros has to do with our passionate kind of love. We think of it as sexual love
sometimes because it's tied up in the word erotic. But it is not only that.

It has to do with your passion to love, your personal desire to love, the love
that flows out of that passion that's within you. Phileo, the second word, is
brotherly love. That's the kind of love that I have with a brother or a sister,
somebody that I'm connecting with, a friendship kind of love, a companionship
kind of love.

And then agape. Agape is the word that is used for God's love, for our love in
response to God's love in the New Testament. Agape is defined in the New
Testament as a sacrificial kind of love.

Now here's the importance of these three words when it comes to your
relationship with God. The Greeks thought that you could get to God, get to a
relationship with God through eros love. By your own religious passions, you
could meet God.

It depended on you, depended on the passion that was within you. If you had
enough passion and enough desire, it would take you to a place where you would
meet God. It all depended on you.

If you're depending on starting a relationship with God by eros love, by your
own passion, or continuing a relationship with God, or growing in a relationship
with God by the love that you can engender by your own passion within, you're
never going to get there. There's a deeper, there's a higher, there's a fuller
kind of love. Eros love doesn't work.

Many today, not unlike the Greeks, think that the way that we reach God is by
phileo love. If we could just all get along, if I can just connect with the
other people in this world, if we can just love one another, then by loving one
another, we actually are loving God. Now, I believe deeply in connecting with
other people.

There's no doubt that the New Testament teaches us again and again and again
that we're to connect with other people, but that's not the way you get to a
relationship with God. That's how you respond to your relationship with God.
That's what grows out of your relationship with God.

To have a relationship with God, hopefully this makes sense, you have to start
with God, not with others. This idea that I can ignore God in my life and
somehow express a love for God or come to a love with God just by relating to
the people in this world, that's a very humanistic idea and you'll never get to
love for God that way. It is not that we love God, Eros love, my own passion.

It is not even that we love each other, phileo love, my connection with others.
It is that he loved us. Let's thank him for his love.

Our Father, thank you. Thank you for what these verses tell us. Thank you that
you showed your love among us, that you showed your love to me.

Thank you that you sent your one, your only son into this world so that I might
live through him. Thank you that he died for me so that I might live through
him. God forgive me for the times when I try to pridefully build love for you
out of my own passions and desires as if I could reach you on my own energy or
power.

Instead God thank you. Thank you for your sacrificial love for me and I
recognize that my relationship with you is not by anything I have done, it is by
all that you have done in Jesus Christ. And I gratefully remind myself of that
gift you've given me in Christ or accept that gift that you've given me in
Christ.

In Jesus name, in Jesus name I gratefully praise you, amen. Join us tomorrow.
We're going to be looking together at verses 11 to 16 of 1 John chapter 4.