NOTES for Jo1 4:19-21
19 We love him, because he first loved us. |
20 If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? |
21 And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. |
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Few of us can boast of good relationships with our neighbors. In the daily examination of conscience we certainly notice anger, touchiness, irritability... But at least we love God! Do we? But the apostle John says that if we do not love our neighbors, then we do not love God either! Everything is simple. We have not seen God, and this means that one way or another we imagine a certain image for ourselves, and to love this image, of course, is not hard. But in our relationships with people close to us, the very capacity to love is tested. Even if the image of God we have created is close to reality, loving Him is not so hard: He is good and merciful, He creates no problems for us! Loving a person, perhaps quarrelsome, capricious, demanding, and not very intelligent, is much harder. But if our love is not shown in this difficult situation, then something is wrong with it, with this love. It means it is no longer selfless, but oriented toward convenience. And that means... it is no longer love.
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