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1 John 4:7-8

约翰一书 4:7-8

The Passage

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God. He who doesn't love doesn't know God, for God is love.

In the other language

亲爱的弟兄啊，我们应当彼此相爱，因为爱是从神来的。凡有爱心的，都是由神而生，并且认识神。没有爱心的，就不认识神，因为神就是爱。

Theme

God is love

Bring a question to this passage

Many readers arrive here from a real question. These are reflections for how this passage speaks to the questions people bring most often — not an answer about what will happen, but an invitation to sit with it slowly.

How do I face this season of pressure at work?

Under strain, other people can begin to look like obstacles, demands, or competitors. These words do not offer a plan for managing your workload; they bring you back to love as an expression of knowing God. You are invited to see the person behind the difficult request, without pretending that every request is reasonable. Love need not mean saying yes to everything. It can include a clear limit, an honest conversation, or attention to someone else's burden. In a pressured workplace, the passage offers a way to consider not only what you accomplish but how you treat people. This passage offers no plan for managing your workload. When work feels pressured how might its invitation to love shape the way you treat the person before you?

Carry thisLove can be honest without becoming harsh or hurried.

Other passages for this questionGenesis 1:26-28 · Isaiah 41:10 · 1 Corinthians 7:3-4

I want to learn to love better in this relationship.

John begins by calling his readers beloved before asking them to love one another. The invitation rests in who God is: love comes from God, and God is love. Learning to love better is therefore more than mastering a set of relationship skills, though those can matter. It involves letting your knowledge of God take shape in how you treat someone else. You can listen, speak honestly, and attend to their dignity without needing to make yourself the center. These words are searching, but they need not become a verdict on every imperfect moment. What if learning to love this person began with receiving the name beloved yourself—how might knowing God as love shape the attention you give them?

Carry thisKnowing God takes shape in how you love another.

Other passages for this questionGenesis 1:26-28 · Isaiah 41:10 · 1 Corinthians 7:3-4

What do I need to let go of in the coming weeks?

John connects knowing God with loving one another. Love is not an optional kindness added to spiritual life; it belongs to the very character of God. For your question about letting go, this passage invites attention to whatever makes another person easier to dismiss than to love. That might be the need to win, a settled judgment, or the habit of reducing someone to their worst moment. Loving does not require denying harm or surrendering necessary boundaries. It does ask you to consider whether being right has become more important than being loving. This passage does not name what you should let go of. Which habit might you loosen to make more room for loving another person?

Carry thisKnowing God and loving others belong together in this passage.

Other passages for this questionGenesis 1:26-28 · Isaiah 41:10 · 1 Corinthians 7:3-4

How can I find stillness in a busy life?

John places knowing God alongside loving one another, not apart from it. This passage does not prescribe stillness, but it gives your attention a direction: love is of God, and God is love. In a busy life, people can become interruptions, appointments, or needs to manage. A pause may begin with seeing the person before you again, rather than rushing past them inwardly. That does not mean ignoring your own limits or making yourself available to everyone. It means allowing love, rather than sheer efficiency, to matter in an ordinary encounter. Who might you see more clearly if you slowed down enough to give them your attention?

Carry thisA pause can begin by seeing the person in front of you.

Other passages for this questionGenesis 1:26-28 · Isaiah 41:10 · 1 Corinthians 7:3-4

Have a different question?

Write what you are actually carrying right now, and Lectio will answer it with this passage — 1 John 4:7-8.

Or walk this passage through the five steps of Lectio →

1 John 4 — in context

1Beloved, don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

2By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,

3and every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of the Antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already.

4You are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.

5They are of the world. Therefore they speak of the world, and the world hears them.

6We are of God. He who knows God listens to us. He who is not of God doesn’t listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.

7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves has been born of God, and knows God.

8He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love.

9By this God’s love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

10In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins.

11Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another.

12No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God remains in us, and his love has been perfected in us.

13By this we know that we remain in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

14We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as the Savior of the world.

More from 1 John

Related topics

The Love of God

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