Courageous Love | 1 John 4:13-21

What would your life be like if you really knew that God loved you? What if you woke up every morning absolutely convinced that the God who created the universe delighted in you because of Jesus? How would that change the way you faced criticism? Failure? Anxiety? Parenting? Marriage? Your future? How would it change how you love other people? 

One of the things that separates Christianity from every other religion is not simply that God loves people, but that God loved us first. Every other religion tells you what you must do to reach God. Christianity tells us what God has already done to reach us. In Christ, the verdict comes before the performance. We don’t obey to be loved; we obey because we already are. The problem is that while most of us know that truth intellectually, we struggle to believe it personally.

In 1 John 4:13-21, John is writing so that we know we have eternal life and are convinced that God loves us. He is teaching us that the more convinced you are that God loves you, the more fearless and freer you are to love others.