Stuck on 1 John 4:21

We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

I started reading 1 John again, very slowly for the last two weeks.

I got stuck on verse 21 about 5 days ago (well not stuck) but I refused to move on until it becomes a reality in my heart, when I put aside myself and think of others first. Five days meditating on just this one verse, not 24/7 but it was going through my mind constantly.

I got to this verse and had to be honest with the Lord "Lord, I'm not living this."

Yesterday while working the strangest thing came over me, all of a sudden I felt an incredible urge to pray and I heard (well not audibly) the phrase 'everlasting joy' (two words that I don't think that I've ever heard put together in my life) so I repeated them and then said 'oh Lord, I pray that everlasting joy would bubble up from my spirit'. Ever since I prayed that prayer I have felt incredible peace and when I see people, I can see them through the eyes of Christ, with amazing forgiveness, like 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do' type of forgiveness. Very strange but welcome my friend.

Praise the Lord!

all of a sudden I felt an incredible urge to pray

This is amazing! Praise GOD.

May I share a little? When I was born again, the moment the Holy Spirit filled me, I mean the very moment, I was around some adults and when I looked at them, I saw them through those very eyes brother. It was a love and care I had not felt for others before.

However, I have not lived up to this either. I confess my sin and wish for you to pray for me. My name is Bryan Reed.

Thank you.

Learjet- that is wonderful! What a beautiful example of being led what to pray by the Holy Spirit. This gives me encouragement!

Thank you for posting!

Onemite

Hi learjet,

This is a wonderfully encouraging word, brother.

I had a similar experience once where I had to come to terms with what this passage means.

When I was a teenager, there was a young man at church who just didn't like me. At the church, there were a group of other teens who felt that I was too "old fashioned." I didn't really like some of the things that they felt was acceptable in terms of music, entertainment, dress, language, etc...

Now, I was quite amicable with them and never had a haughty "my way or the highway" attitude. I greeted them cheerfully and always tried to encourage them. Unfortunately, they still felt that I was judgmental for simply not being like them or sharing their tastes in certain things.

One young man was more cold that the others. It always seemed like he went out of his way to be the center of attention. Things grew worse when he found out that one of the girls in the youth group that he liked quite a bit was infatuated with me. At this point, he tried to embarrass me in front of others. He also did quite a few things to me when no one else was watching.

This troubled me considerably. I prayed about it, but I felt a growing frustration over this young man. Yet the more I prayed, the worse his behavior seemed to get.

One day, I felt the presence of the Lord come over me as I was driving. I was upset at something this young man had done to me...and that he was behaving differently in front of others. However, I felt the Lord leading me to pray for the young man. I realized that I might not truly love the young man...and the passage that you quoted came to mind. This realization hurt.

I pulled over the car into the parking lot of a public park and began to pray for this young man in truth. In tears and deeply hurt, I prayed that God would do for him everything that I wanted the Lord to do for me. I wanted for God to reveal Himself and show Himself real to this young man...so that this young man could have an intimate relationship with Christ. I prayed that God would raise up this young man to do wonders for God's glory.

When I began praying these things, I felt such a "release" inside of me. Those bad experiences that I had with the treatment from this guy no longer mattered at all. I felt like I truly cared...and I even saw him in a different way after that. Even though he still continued to try and irritate or embarrass me, I just replied with gentleness and a soft answer.

Eventually, his public and private taunts stopped. Just before I moved on, this young man even attempted to befriend me. Over time, it seemed that he took his faith quite seriously and I later heard that God used him in a local church.

I found out a few years ago that this young man had died in a horrible traffic accident. He was a newlywed and his wife had recently had a baby. When I heard the news, it truly hurt. I wept deeply. I had come to truly feel the love of God for this young man.

Thanks again for this timely reminder, brother! It is a passage that we should consider often...and I pray that we can get it embedded into our very hearts and minds.

I pulled over the car into the parking lot of a public park and began to pray for this young man in truth. In tears and deeply hurt, I prayed that God would do for him everything that I wanted the Lord to do for me. I wanted for God to reveal Himself and show Himself real to this young man...so that this young man could have an intimate relationship with Christ. I prayed that God would raise up this young man to do wonders for God's glory.

Chris, I think you nailed it on head what it means to love your brother. The Lord teaches us that if we love Him, we will obey His commands. If we really love God, we will desire that others love Him too and are conformed to His image through obedience. This is not a selfish love because though the Fruit of the Spirit in their lives will positively affect us being one in the Body, it will change them to God's image which is for the glory of God. This is part of the reason Christ Jesus rebuked the Jews and Pharisees who feared man more than God. Because they did not love God they neither sought to truly purify themselves nor those they converted. As a child follows the nature of their parent, so their converts feared man and loved the World.

Peace on you.

WOW! when i opened this thread i never expected to find such an amazing post and followup comments. What a deep, meaty dish you give! I must admit, sometimes i pray earnestly and with genuine love for those who are vicious and sadistic towards me and other times i do not. Sometimes i wholly forgive, other times i do not...just half-heartedly. Some people are so evil they do not seem human to me and i don't feel interested in praying for them. Others that seem human, rather than psychopathic, i am able to pray for over time, but sometimes just don't want to. I find it very hard to pray for people who are deliberately mean and sadistic without cause because i cannot understand being deliberately mean to someone who has never hurt you first. I especially cannot understand it in the professing "Christian". And when i say mean i mean taking pleasure in hurting or bullying others. And I have never believed in being haughty towards others around me yet haughty people seem to explode out of the woodwork when i am around, their noses way up in the air and so forth, sorta like Chris wrote about here.
It's not something i comprehend, although i do realize this generation is a generation of narcissists like no other and so that may explain somewhat the extreme amount of haughty people today.

Earl and Chris,

Appreciate your testimonies. Lots of inspiration and encouragement there.

Thanks for sharing.

ginnyrose

Thanks for starting this thread =)

Would appreciate prayer too that I would experience likewise the love of God as set out in 1 John 4:21.

When I began praying these things, I felt such a "release" inside of me. Those bad experiences that I had with the treatment from this guy no longer mattered at all.

Chris,

Love it brother! I've had this happen many times myself, it's a wonderful thing.

To be very honest with you sometimes I don't even feel like praying for people when they do something like you mentioned. When I'm in this state I just tell the Lord "well Father, I don't even have the desire to pray for this person from my heart because I don't want to forgive them..." and amazingly, the Lord will (every single time) take that little sliver of hope and change my heart on the inside for that person.

Surely you desire truth in the inner parts; you teach me wisdom in the inmost place. ~Psalm 51:6

He is so wonderful, I'm so thankful to be on this side of the cross, He cleans the inside of our cup. We don't have to worry about murder when we are clean on the inside, what a wonderful, wonderful God we serve! When our cup is clean on the inside we can praise the Lord in prison (with stripes on our back) circumstances don't matter; poor, sick, beat down, it doesn't matter, we can be set free inwardly!

Thank you for your wonderful response, it gives me great encouragement!

Good words, everyone. In addition to these passages, I also have been thinking about the opening words of I Corinthians 13. So often, the "charity" or "love" in this passage is thought of as a superficial concept.

Given that it takes place between I Corinthians 12 (where Paul speaks of the Body of Christ) and I Corinthians 14 (where Paul speaks of the order of the gathered Church assembly), this chapter seems directed at the "love" that we feel for one another in the Body of Christ.

Oh -- the futility of our "tongues," "prophecy" and "words of wisdom" that are spoken (or written) from a heart where love is not evident! If we can just get a hold of this "agape" love and make it evident in all that we say, write or do, I imagine that the unity of Christ would cause us to be more effective ambassadors to this lost world.