Are we born again by loving God and others? Please share scriptures and thoughts. Thank you.

soldier of light · Feb 10, 2025

Are we born again by loving God and others?

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Clare73 · Feb 10, 2025

soldier of light said:
Are we born again by loving God and others?

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

No. . .

Rebirth is a sovereign act of the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:3-5), who is as unaccountable as the wind (Jn 3:6-8).

soldier of light · Feb 10, 2025

Clare73 said:
No. . .

Rebirth is a sovereign act of the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:3-5), who is as unaccountable as the wind (Jn 3:6-8).

Why then are we being told to love?

soldier of light · Feb 10, 2025

Clare73 said:
No. . .

Rebirth is a sovereign act of the Holy Spirit (Jn 3:3-5), who is as unaccountable as the wind (Jn 3:6-8).

Jesus promised his holy spirit in John 14 to those who keep his words. His words are that we love each other and God. So if we love people we get the holy spirit? That's when we are born again perhaps? I wouldn't know for sure however. But surely obeying Jesus is necessary according to John 14 and Matthew 5 and 7

th1bill · Feb 10, 2025

Loving one another is moving closer to Yehovah God. Moving closer often leads to us seeking Yehovah.

T.i.m.o.t.h.y. · Feb 11, 2025

soldier of light said:
Why then are we being told to love?

In 1Jn.4:7, John is saying that we have been born of Love, so loving others is being like God, that is who we are now. If we don't practice Love (1Cor.13:4-8) then that Love in us by the Holy Spirit (Rm.5:5) has no expression (Rm.13:8-10), that Light (Eph.5:8) in us is not seen, isn't given to others (Mat.5:14-15), and no one knows from us about God's Love for them through Jesus' sacrifice for all on the cross. (Jn.17:23).
Read also 2Cor.5:20.

You heard of God's Love to you, God's Light shown upon you and you got saved.. so let your light shine to others.

Clare73 · Feb 11, 2025

soldier of light said:
Why then are we being told to love?

That is addressed to those with the Holy Spirit, who are the only ones able to obey that command.

soldier of light · Feb 11, 2025

Clare73 said:
That is addressed to those with the Holy Spirit, who are the only ones able to obey that command.

I surly don't belong here

timothyu · Feb 11, 2025

Ya Gotta Have Heart

Dan Perez · Feb 12, 2025

soldier of light said:
Are we born again by loving God and others?

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

Only Israel is BORN AGAIN !!

Howwill you handle

soldier of light said:
I surly don't belong here

And you have to start some where !!

dan p

Strong in Him · Feb 12, 2025

soldier of light said:
Why then are we being told to love?

The word for "love" used in 1 John 4, and John 13 is Agape - rather than Philios Storge or Eros.
Agape is God's love; divine, perfect. We cannot love with God's love until we have been born of God - born again by his Spirit so that we are no longer spiritually dead, but have eternal life.

Our own human love - friendship/affection/kindness - while good - is not loving as Jesus loved us, with an Agape love that led him to the cross to give his life for sinners. Only God can give us his love.

ViaCrucis · Feb 12, 2025

soldier of light said:
Are we born again by loving God and others?

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.

The act of loving is not the cause of our regeneration. Regeneration, rather, is the cause of our love. "We love because He first loved us", it is out of God's love, poured out through Christ, by which He graciously brings us into communion with Himself that He births in us a new life which responds to God favorably.

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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 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.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world." - 1 John 4:7-17

This is about our mystical union to God, in Christ, by the Spirit--it is a Trinitarian mystery and our invitation, by grace, into that mystery. To share in the love and life of the Holy Trinity, this is a gift we have received as grace; having been born anew (and from above) by grace, we have been brought into mystical union with Jesus Christ; and in Christ we are in union to His Father (and thus, His Father is our Father) and we have His Spirit, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, working in us, making us holy and repairing us, to restore in us what is broken, to work faith in us, to work love in us, to work hope in us. Having been born anew, made new in Christ, there is a new kind of life within us that is from God and which lives by faith, and works by love. Walking in the hope of the future day when God makes all things new, and God will be all in all.

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis · Feb 12, 2025

soldier of light said:
Jesus promised his holy spirit in John 14 to those who keep his words. His words are that we love each other and God. So if we love people we get the holy spirit? That's when we are born again perhaps? I wouldn't know for sure however. But surely obeying Jesus is necessary according to John 14 and Matthew 5 and 7

The issue is initiative and cause.

God takes the initiative, and His grace is the cause. We are the recipients, the receivers, the benefactors. It's not what we do, but what God does; and out of God's work, He makes us His workmanship, that we should then work in cooperation with Him.

If it were possible to live in fellowship with God through the exercise of our own power, then the Law would not be a source of death, but of abundant life. Yet, because of sin, the Law, which is good and holy, does not bring life, but death; not because the Law is bad or defective but because we are.

Thus it is through God's own initiative to come down to us, to save you, to save me, to save all of us out of His love, out of His kindness that He takes hold of us, who by ourselves are enemies of God and condemned under the Law, and give us Himself and adopt us as His own. That by His grace we should be brought into Himself, and receive from Him the fullness of Himself. That even as God is love, we too are to love. To love as He loved us--this is a work of grace in our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit, freely given not to the righteous, but to unrighteous sinners who are justified freely out of God's most compassionate kindness toward sinners in Christ Jesus.

-CryptoLutheran

soldier of light · Feb 12, 2025

ViaCrucis said:
The issue is initiative and cause.

God takes the initiative, and His grace is the cause. We are the recipients, the receivers, the benefactors. It's not what we do, but what God does; and out of God's work, He makes us His workmanship, that we should then work in cooperation with Him.

If it were possible to live in fellowship with God through the exercise of our own power, then the Law would not be a source of death, but of abundant life. Yet, because of sin, the Law, which is good and holy, does not bring life, but death; not because the Law is bad or defective but because we are.

Thus it is through God's own initiative to come down to us, to save you, to save me, to save all of us out of His love, out of His kindness that He takes hold of us, who by ourselves are enemies of God and condemned under the Law, and give us Himself and adopt us as His own. That by His grace we should be brought into Himself, and receive from Him the fullness of Himself. That even as God is love, we too are to love. To love as He loved us--this is a work of grace in our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit, freely given not to the righteous, but to unrighteous sinners who are justified freely out of God's most compassionate kindness toward sinners in Christ Jesus.

-CryptoLutheran

Who said anything about our power? But let's examine that. If God said to cross the street do you need power for such a simple task? I think people complicate what is simple.

timothyu · Feb 12, 2025

soldier of light said:
I think people complicate what is simple.

That's why theology is such a mess.

Strong in Him · Feb 12, 2025

soldier of light said:
Who said anything about our power?

The alternative to doing this in God's strength/power is to do it in our own.
We cannot love God unless he first gives us his love and the ability to love him. Crossing the road has nothing to do with it.

soldier of light · Feb 12, 2025

Strong in Him said:
The alternative to doing this in God's strength/power is to do it in our own.
We cannot love God unless he first gives us his love and the ability to love him. Crossing the road has nothing to do with it.

We love God with all our strength as well. We reap and sow.

Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.

soldier of light · Feb 12, 2025

We reap and sow love and righteousness

Galatians 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. 9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.

Strong in Him · Feb 12, 2025

soldier of light said:
Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment.

Yes - but it's impossible to love God, with Agape love, on our own and in our own strength.
That's the point. We can't keep the commandments; we need Jesus.

soldier of light · Feb 12, 2025

Strong in Him said:
Yes - but it's impossible to love God, with Agape love, on our own and in our own strength.

It's impossible to love while arguing over agape. You contradict the scripture. It said we shall love God with all our strength

Are we born again by loving God and others? Please share scriptures and thoughts. Thank you.

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