The disciple John talks about God’s incredible love in 1 John 3 – and its consequences.
1. God’s love is lavished on us
We have a creator known for his “unfailing love” (to use the wording of Psalm 143). Or, as the Scripture Union song put it: “Jesus love is very wonderful, It’s so high you can’t get over it, So low you can’t get under it, So wide you can’t get around it, Oh, wonderful love!”
It is, as John writes, “lavished” on us.
This is not the sort of love of a friend who is a bit flaky or needs time to themselves. It is not given grudgingly. Nor is it transactional: God does not offer if we do enough works. That’s why God saves us through grace, not because we deserve it.
In fact, John points out in 1 John 3 that the lavished love is so significant that the creator of the universe has deemed “that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!”
Charles Wesley, in a hymn written to mark his conversion, captures a sense of wonder at the surprising level of undeserved love that God lavishes on us:
And can it be that I should gain
An int’rest in the Saviour’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?
2. Do not let anyone lead you astray
Ever had a friend who is a bad influence? Perhaps they have a real downer about Christianity. They might offer advice that doesn’t sit well with what the Bible says. Or perhaps they persuade you to get into situations that are unholy.
In verse 7, John says:
Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning.
We don’t need to cut ourselves off from the world. In John 17, Jesus prays for the disciples referring to them, using the following phrase: “As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.”
Nonetheless, Jesus created fellowship among disciples, urging them to take bread and wine together. Likely, we need the friends and a church where we can ensure we’re re-centring our lives on Jesus.
3. Those who are saved will change direction
In verse 9, John writes:
No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.
This might seem to be a claim that real Christians never sin. But experience would suggest otherwise – as does the Bible. After all, John himself earlier in the same letter writes: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
The website God Questions? says that what John means is that “believers will not continue practicing sin as a way of life.” It continues:
The child of God who was a former thief may still struggle with covetousness, but he no longer lives according to the pattern of stealing. The child of God who was a former adulterer may still struggle with lust, but he has broken free from the old life of immorality.
4. Love with actions
God has delivered and is delivering the greatest act of love the world has ever seen. He came down to earth in human form and was crucified. And we are called, as reflectors of God’s image, to also act out of love. John writes:
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.
A very successful entrepreneur with a Bentley once told me that he had difficulty donating to charity because “it cuts against the grain”. John’s message, echoing Jesus’s teaching about loving your neighbour, is that love needs to be born out in how we act.