We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us
1 John 4:16 New American Standard Bible 16 We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.
There is a relationship between faith and knowing. We not only understand with our mind and heart, we also experience the living God through faith. This is a living relationship. It is not a mere memorizing or knowing of scripture. There are some today that it seems their relationship with God is simply based on knowing information about the bible. They may be able to share things from the word of God, but the question is have they truly encountered the Living God.
When we come to faith in Christ, we come to know the love that God has for us. It says that God is love. It doesn’t mean that God is an impersonal force that can be experienced and encountered. God is the supreme and ultimate being. He has a mind, will, and emotions. His very essence of who He is and what drives all that He does is love. God’s desire is that every person ever created would come to salvation. That they would repent of their sins and turn to the Living God. But sadly because God has given people a freewill, there are those who choose to reject the Living God and His word. They would rather live for themselves and the things of this world. They see God as vengeful and cruel and fail to truly come to know and experience His love.
John says the one who abides in love abides in God. The love of God manifested in a person’s life is an outward sign of an inward reality. If we claim to be in Christ, the love of God will be manifested in our lives. The love of God will immerse our lives. This reality only becomes truth when we abide in Him. Understanding without Him we are nothing and can do nothing will lead us to abide in Him and rely on Him for all things. Jesus will empower us for all that He asks us to do. He will provide all that we need. But the key is we must decide to abide in Him. We must remain in Him and pour our lives into daily fellowship with Him. He must be the priority, aim, and obsession of our lives.