1John 4:7-11

4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God;
and everyone who loves is born of God, and knows God.
4:8 He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love.

4:9 By this was God's love revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world
that we might live through him.

4:10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us,
and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
{"atoning sacrifice" is from the Greek "hilasmos," an appeasing, propitiating, or the means of appeasement or propitiation - the sacrifice that turns away God's wrath because of our sin.}

4:11 Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.

Assurance from God's Love

4:12 No one has seen God at any time.
If we love one another, God remains in us,
and his love has been perfected in us.
4:13 By this we know that we remain in him and he in us,
because he has given us of his Spirit.
4:14 We have seen and testify
that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world.
4:15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God,
God remains in him, and he in God.
4:16 We know and have believed the love which God has for us.
God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.

The Evidence of the Acceptance of God's Love

Confidence

4:17 In this love has been made perfect among us,
that we may have boldness in the day of judgment,
because as he is, even so are we in this world.

4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear,
because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love.

Loving Others

4:19 We love Him, because he first loved us.
4:20 If a man says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar;
for he who doesn't love his brother whom he has seen,
how can he love God whom he has not seen?
4:21 This commandment we have from him,
that he who loves God should also love his brother.

5:1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.
Whoever loves the father also loves the child who is born of him.

Obedience

5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God,
when we love God and keep his commandments.
5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.
His commandments are not grievous.
5:4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.
This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith.
5:5 Who is he who overcomes the world,
but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

  1Corinthians 13

The Attitude in Exercising One's Spiritual Gifts

13:1 If I speak with the languages of men and of angels,
but don't have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal.

13:2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge;
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don't have love, I am nothing.

13:3 If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don't have love, it profits me nothing.

13:4 Love is patient and is kind; love doesn't envy.
Love doesn't brag, is not proud,
13:5 doesn't behave itself inappropriately,
doesn't seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil;
13:6 doesn't rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
13:7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
13:8 Love never fails.

But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with.
Where there are various languages, they will cease.
Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.

13:9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part;
13:10 but when that which is complete has come,
then that which is partial will be done away with.
13:11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child.
Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.
13:12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.

13:13 But now faith, hope, and love remain--these three.
The greatest of these is love.