Daily Reading for Personal Growth, 40 Days with God

⁷ My dear brothers, we must love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves others is God's child and he knows God.

⁸ But anyone who does not love others does not know God, because God is love.

⁹ This is how God showed his love for us. He sent his only Son into the world to give us life.

¹⁰ This is love! We did not love God, but he loved us. And he sent his Son to be the sacrifice to pay for the wrong things we have done.

¹¹ My dear brothers, if God loved us so much, we must love one another also.

¹² No man has ever seen God. But God lives in us if we love one another. And in loving one another, his love is made perfect.

¹³ He has given us of his own Spirit. That is how we know that we are in him and he is in us.

¹⁴ And we have seen and we are telling you that the Father sent his Son to save the people in the world.

¹⁵ If anyone says, `Jesus is the Son of God,' God is in him and he is in God.

¹⁶ We know and we believe that God loves us. God is love. And anyone who loves others is in God and God is in him.

¹⁷ That is why we love each other very much. Then we will not be afraid on the day when people are judged. We are like Christ in this world.

¹⁸ Where God's love is, there is no fear. God's perfect love takes away fear. It is punishment that makes a person fear. Anyone who has fear does not have perfect love.

¹⁹ We love others because God first loved us.

²⁰ If anyone says, `I love God', and he hates his brother, he is telling a lie. If he does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?

²¹ God gave us this law. The person who loves God must love his brother also.