All You Need Is Love

We all want to truly know and to be truly known, but where can such community be found? In his first epistle, the apostle John offers us some initial answers to that question. True community means living in the light, and he both points us to the Light-giver and denounces the lies that keep us in the dark.

1 John 2 tells us truths about what Jesus has done for us, the love which now defines our lives, and who we are as children of God. These truths do more than satisfy our curiosity, but show us how to live in the greater reality of God’s love.

Are you a child of God or a child of the devil? To ask such a question may seem shocking, even offensive, but these are the categories John appeals to in his epistle. If you are a child of God, then that should be evident in the way you live and in the way you love.

“Little children, love one another.” It is thought that the elderly apostle John repeated this message to early Christians every time he joined in their gatherings. This simple and profound message gets right to the heart of this letter. In this session, we reflect on why John places such a heavy emphasis on love and what effect love has on the world around us.

What do we really know? Does certainty change the way that we ought to live? Again and again throughout John’s letter, we assess what we know with certainty, especially in the final chapter when John reminds us that we know that we have eternal life, we know that God hears us, and we know the true God.