The Key for Life

Jesus said to his disciples before his arrest and crucifixion, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." (John 16:33b NKJV) How did Jesus Christ overcome the world? By love, yes, by the love of the Father. 

The love that heals the hurt, wounded, and depressed, that fills the poor, that comforts the lonely and sorrowful, that strengthens the oppressed and outcast, and that reaches out the obscure, is the most powerful means to save people. To love God is to obey His commandments. Those of God obey Him. Love enables to obey God because it is of him. Love enables the saints to love the unlovable because we are loved first by God. Remember that we didn't love God first. 

God is invisible and no one has ever seen Him (1 John 4:12). But people can see God in the Son Jesus Christ who demonstrated the unfailing love of the Father on the cross as a public spectacle to the whole world (Colossians 2:15). The love of God was manifested in Him and that is the true love. Therefore, those born of God can love one another. That's the mark of Christians. "By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35 NKJV)

John gives us great exhortations in the letter of 1 John regarding love.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him."  (1 John 4:7-16 NKJV)