What is love? In their overreaction to the Enlightenment’s worship of reason, the Romantics reduced love to mere attraction and affection. Elevating emotion above all else, the Romantics made gratification of the self the sole purpose of human relationships. They thus effectively substituted lust, which is the desire for another in order to please the self, for love.

Of course, the irony is that such selfish Romantic “love” inevitably leads to hate for all those who frustrate it. It should thus come as no surprise that those who seek public acceptance of all manner of self-gratification are filled with hate at those who oppose their “love,” attempting to “cancel” anyone who would disagree with them, filling both mass media and social media with their hostility toward those who would uphold the teachings of Christ concerning human sexual expression.

But John reminds us that hating anyone makes us a murderer (3:15). And the sad fact is that ten times as many innocents have been slaughtered in the United States in the name of Romantic “love” than died in Hitler’s gas chambers in Europe. No, the sort of selfish lust that impersonates love eventually leads only to death.

So, what is true love? In today’s passage, John reminds us that Jesus gives us the clearest example by laying down His life for us (3:15). True love is thus supremely self-forgetful, desiring only to meet the needs of the beloved without regard for the cost to the self. True love is thus willing to share with a needy brother (3:17), moving beyond mere words of affection to helpful actions (3:18).

And as we show and share such true love, such unconditional, self-sacrificial love, our confidence in God grows (3:21). And as our prayers are increasingly motivated by such true love, we can expect God to answer more and more of them (3:22). And as we are filled with the Spirit of Christ, His love will give us the power to overcome even the worst of the world’s selfish, spiteful, vindictive hate (4:4). For He is the One Who enables us to love even our bitterest enemies as He has loved us.

I John 3:11-4:6 (ESV)

11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.
13 Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death.
15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
17 But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?
18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him;
20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.
21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God;
22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him.
23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.
24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.
6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.