1 John 4:7-21

Ignatian Practice main page

1. Doodle

Take a piece of paper and for a couple minutes, just draw or write whatever comes to mind when you think of love.

2. Pray your Doodle

When you are finished, take this paper to God and ask him his thoughts on it. (Are there things that need healing? Ask God for healing. Are there things that bring him joy or make him laugh? Enjoy it with him. Are there things you want to pray through? Do it. Etc.)

3. Question

Read through the passage (1 John 4:7-21 below) slowly. Which parts are hard to understand? Or challenging to accept? Or difficult to obey? Sit with God, holding these parts up to him.

4. Fear

1. What words are used about fear?
2. What is fear, and what is it not?
3. What is our relationship to fear, as believers?

5. Love

1. What words are used about love?
2. What is love, and what is it not?
3. What are God’s expectations for us?
4. What does God give us?

6. Abide

1. What words are used about abiding?
2. What are our expectations around abiding?
3. What are the results of abiding? Of not abiding?
4. What does it practically mean to abide?

7. Meditate

Sit in a comfortable position with your eyes closed. Rest in the love of God. What does it feel like? How can you accept God’s love? Be overwhelmed by it?

God Is Love

⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
¹³ By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. ¹⁶ So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. ¹⁷ By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. ¹⁹ We love because he first loved us. ²⁰ If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot[a] love God whom he has not seen. ²¹ And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

(a) 1 John 4:20 Some manuscripts how can he

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