Good morning. Having an obligation is often a less than comfortable thing. Some obligations may be embraced happily, but others are accepted grudgingly. I would like for us to consider an obligation today, and as we consider it, we could decide whether it falls into the “happily embraced” or the “accepted grudgingly” category.
We understand the nature of this obligation by reading a short verse of scripture. 1 John 4:11 tells us: Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought to love one another.
The dictionary definition of the word obligation reads this way: The action of obligating oneself to a course of action (as by a promise or vow) such as by a formal contract, a promise, or the demands of conscience or custom.
Is loving one another an obligation due to our “formal contract” with God? I have never thought of it in that way, but I suppose that it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that it is true. Is the obligation to love one another because God has first loved us established by a promise and/or a vow? Yes, I would say that living lives of love is absolutely part of our commitment to God, a promise made through our acceptance of His grace which is poured out to us through Jesus Christ.
It wouldn’t be inaccurate to suggest that since God has loved us graciously, powerfully, sufficiently, magnificently, without restraint and beyond our ability to measure, we are obligated to love one another.
When we read more of the passage, 1 John 4:9-12, we gain a more complete understanding of the truth: 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. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation (atoning sacrifice) for our sins.Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
Beloved of God, and those words include all of us, love one another. It is our obligation, but it is also our joy.
Vern