1 John is a book that hits on a number of topics, but love sure is one of them. It could be tempting by the time you reach chapter three to just gloss over all this love talk. But if you do you’d miss a beautiful line of Scripture. I actually like the sound of the NIV so I’ll quote from there:
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
Our understanding of love is defined in many ways through passages in this book as we’re told what love has done, who has loved first, what love should look like now, and so on. But this line has such simplicity and profundity. God’s love for us is visible in the fact that he would call us his very own children. The Christian understanding of how we relate to God is amazing in that fact. There is not some distant God who cares little for the affairs of this tiny world. We do not have a God who tolerates us because of what we do for it. Our God loved us before we ever could and calls us his children. We are no long slaves to sin and bound to death, rather we are rescued from that peril and are God’s sons and daughters.
We are not merely saved from sin then left in a position always needing to please a capricious God who could easily reverse his judgment. No we are saved from sin and saved for God himself. He is faithful to his promises and has adopted us as his children, an action that cannot then be undone. What love God has truly lavished upon us that we are his own, and how overwhelming it is when we fix our mind upon the fact that we are his beloved.
Year in the Bible 