Purposed To Love

What does it truly mean to love one another as believers? In this message drawn from 1 John 3:11-18, we are brought face to face with one of the most searching questions a Christian can ask: is the love I show my fellow believers real, or is it merely words? The passage makes a striking claim -- that genuine love for the brethren is actually a marker of salvation itself. If there is no desire whatsoever to love fellow believers, something is deeply wrong at the root. This is not a peripheral teaching but a command that has existed from the very beginning, echoing all the way back through Leviticus and into the heart of the gospel. We are reminded that the Father provided His love sovereignly, the Son executed it perfectly, and the Spirit has deposited it completely within every believer. That means we are never without the resource to love -- even when it is hard, even when we are tired, even when we have been hurt. The call is not to wait until we feel like loving, but to make a daily sovereign choice, just as God Himself chose to love us long before we deserved it.