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Головна Interior prayer Reflection on the Word of God Reflection on 1Jn 4:11

Reflection on 1Jn 4:11

Beloved, if God so loved us,

we also ought to love one another.

When you say the word “love”, what especially young people imagine is de facto fornication, impurity, even homosexuality. All of this is thrown together into one bag labeled “love”. It is in fact anti-love, egoism and perversity. It is unfortunate that many world languages only have one expression for the word “love”.

The Scripture here talks about the God’s love, pinnacle of humility, pinnacle of suffering, pinnacle of self-sacrifice. Greek language uses three expressions for love and we need to be aware of it. “Agapé” is a selfless love for God. Jesus asks Peter: “Agapas me?” Do you love Me with divine love? Peter replies: “Filo se.” I love you with a human love. “Filia” is the second term for love. It is love for parents, siblings, or nation. The term “eros” means carnal love, associated with sexuality, and such love is exclusive to man and woman who have duly entered a holy matrimony, because it is related to the giving of life, raising children and thus sacrificing oneself for the future posterity.

It is helpful to read all of chapter 4 where the apostle John says that many false prophets have gone out into the world and that we must test the spirits. He warns against the spirit of antichrist, who denies the divinity of Christ. It is denied by Jehovah’s Witnesses today, even though they quote Scripture, and it is also denied by the historical-critical method in theology, which divides Jesus into the historical and mythical Christ. This pernicious heretical current is taught in all theological faculties. The fruit is the current moral decline – the legalization of homosexuality and other “Q” perversions such as pedophilia, sadomasochism, sexual murder and similar crimes. All this is hypocritically called love, and this is the age in which we live. Therefore, when we hear the word love, we must be careful what the person in question means by the word. The term “agape” was immediately hijacked by liberal Christians to mean feasting and a kind of debauchery. But “agape” means the willingness to lay down one’s life for Christ and His Gospel, and thus for the salvation of immortal souls. The apostle Paul severely criticized the one-sided reference to the so-called love feast.

It is necessary to have clear concepts: what is love and what is self-love, egoism and moral corruption, even if the world or apostate Christianity hides all this under the term “love”. It is therefore necessary to distinguish between spirits, as the apostle also states in chapter 4. For false prophets have gone out, who are of the world, and the world inspires what they say, and the world listens to them (v.5).

Verse 9: “In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world.” And He died as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (v.10).

It is also said that anyone who speaks of love but hates his brother is a liar. He who has bitterness in his heart and is unable to forgive, but speaks of love, is a liar. It is necessary to repent and put relationships in order. First of all, I must acknowledge my own sins before God. For example, the fact that someone has wronged me or said something about me without ever meaning any harm, and I would be offended and remember it for years, would be a sign that my relationship with God is very superficial and that I do not have a healthy self-criticism. We should love our neighbor as ourselves, and we should be critical of ourselves, truthful, not offended when we are told the hard truth. If I love, I see the faults and the misery of the other, which he may not even want to admit, and it hurts me, and I pray for him, seeing that I am powerless to change him. This is love crucified. I know Jesus wants to save my brother, but his deified ego will not allow it, he remains in bondage to the old self. But this slave-master keeps me in bondage too, though in a different way. It is only by true humility, truth, which is a form of love, that I can overcome the spirit of lies that deceives my brother and me, and help both him and myself. But if I have an illusion about my false holiness, and as soon as someone touches my pride I feel sad or hateful, then it is obvious that I have nothing to do with God’s love, agape. So I have to ask for it in prayer. I must practice humility, I must know how to apologize to the other, I must know how to make the first step and offer reconciliation when I have been wronged. This is practical love, not pious platitudes as is the case today. “Love” is the most misused word today. And what is love for the sinner? To call sin sin and point to the Savior, not to deceive him as if he had no sin, as the current trend and spirit of lies does, which has taken over an overwhelming percentage of the highest places in the Catholic Church through the homolobby.

What did St. Basil say about love? To the question: “Is he guilty against love and merciless who repeatedly points out to his brothers their sins and says, ‘You must improve yourselves’?”, St. Basil replied: “On the contrary, he is guilty against love who does not do this, because after the bite of the snake the poison remains in the wound and if it is not removed it causes death. Therefore, he is merciless who does not exhort his brothers.”

What does that mean in practice? It does not mean that I am going to tell everyone what sins and mistakes they have made and insult them in the process. That would be a misunderstanding. But when I see the other person giving offense, it must hurt me. So I ask God to give me light on what to do in this situation, because if I tell the truth, he will not accept it and will rebel against God and consider me his enemy. This is the reality, so it is not so easy to help others see. So how to do it? How did the saints do it? How did the Lord Jesus Himself act? He preached the truth, called for repentance and called the hardened Pharisees by their true name, even though they hated Him for it. I cannot do this without interior prayer and the light I must ask from God as to how I should act in a particular case. If I just take a quote from Scripture and use it in an inappropriate situation, for example, “admonish your brother,” I will humiliate him in my arrogance and pride hidden behind my words, he will not repent, and on the contrary I will be convicted that I have misunderstood what it means to act in the Spirit of truth and what true love is. Even quotations from Scripture can be misused; but when a quotation is used in the right place at the right time, it is a medicine that heals, even saves. Therefore, I must have sorrow for the sin of another person, and the Lord will give me the grace to recognize my own sin, that I am perhaps worse than he is. If I start from myself and take the plank out of my own eye, then I am taking the speck out of my brother’s eye in the right way, and it is beneficial for me and for him. But without communicating with God about my brother, I cannot do that. Just using my reason alone will not solve his problems in any way, even if I appeal to the Scriptures. Then it would be true: “The letter kills.” In order for the Spirit to give life, the Holy Spirit must first give light to me, so that I may become His mediator, but there is a price to pay: humility. It is only by humbling myself before my brother that I overcome the “slave-driver” called the old self who keeps him in pride and does not allow him to accept the truth about his own misery and sin. Or, in another case, this slave-driver keeps him down. What applies here is that the truth sets us free, and Jesus is the truth. So I should give him Jesus, through me Jesus should approach this brother, and I should be aware that Jesus is in me, especially in interior prayer.

Therefore God established a commandment about love as the first and the greatest one to love God with one’s whole heart, whole soul and all strength. Maybe we think: but then there is not much love left for one’s neighbor. On the contrary, if we love God with our whole heart, we do not love our neighbor with a selfish love, but we love him with God’s love, we draw it from a divine source. We shall love our neighbor as ourselves. We shall love ourselves in such a way that we do all we can to be saved, to prevent our soul from perishing in hell, and that comes with sacrifice. You don’t go downhill on a sled to heaven. Down the hill on a sled, one goes to hell. It requires no effort. You need to just relax, give a green light to your pride, your self-will and interior decomposition.

The question of admonishing and reprimanding has various levels. For example, parents are obligated to reprimand their children, so they learn how to correctly discern good and evil. Similarly, a religious superior is obligated to call sin a sin and not to legalize it and bless it, as is the case today with the blessing of the outrageous sin of sodomy. As a result, souls go to hell, because people, who were supposed to repent to be saved, are assured in the fact that they don’t have to repent. Allegedly, they need to be so-to-say accepted, and therefore God’s order and God’s laws must be rejected and one thus ends up in a rebellion against God. To speak about mercy in this case means abuse mercy and that is a sin against the Holy Spirit. Because of the so-called love for a sinner, a pinnacle of anti-charity is reached. That is why it is of utmost importance to be able to discern various spiritual powers, or systems of lies and manipulation, which are capable of concealing the most egregious perversities and crimes behind lofty words such as love, mercy, compassion, gentleness. This manipulation is a sign of the spirit of antichrist, who is being incarnated and controlling the church and nations through the church fraudsters who have fully embraced him. Why? Because people did not love the truth, they did not search for the truth, and they wanted to be deluded. They notoriously rejected true repentance, without which nobody can be saved.

We shall love our neighbor in accordance with God’s standard: as ourselves. However, I shall love myself, as it is sometimes said, in such a way, that I take a whip and scourge my pride, my arrogance, all kinds of impurities, judgments, egoism… out of me. This is a true love for oneself, because all this prevents me from not being condemned and so obtaining the highest good, which is life eternal. I shall love my neighbor in the same way, so that neither he is condemned. Therefore, I have to be an example: “Brother, this is how I handle the old self… Because I love you, I advise you to do similarly.”

Now, love means also being a good example by displaying my counting on God, respecting His laws, even though I have to make sacrifices. I shall be a living example worth following for my neighbor. As the apostle says: “Become like me.”

The word of life says that God’s love for us was manifested in the utmost sacrifice. We should also be willing to give our life for their eternal life, for their salvation. This is usually not done all at once, but gradually, in the same manner as parents raise their children. They must die to themselves, to their comfort, in small things to raise true Christians.

Think about the word of life and answer these questions:

Whom should you love?

Why should you love?

What is love?

God so loved us …