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As we see it with so many things in the bible, John separates his experience into different stages: knowing and believing. Though John doesn`t tell us exactly how he has known the love of God, he has indeed known it. But beyond that he has believed it. He hasn’t rejected the idea that God loves him, but rather accepted it and continued to believe it.

In some way or other, and it will be different for each of us, God will show His love to us. For each of us our reaction to that revelation is crucial. Did we believe in the love that HE has for us? Many of us have experiences that make us doubt that we are loved. Perhaps members of our family have been unkind to us, or worse, abused us in some way or other. Perhaps friends or colleagues have taken advantages of us or deserted us in times of need. And some others have experienced much more terrible things that could only be described as ‘hell on earth’. One thinks perhaps of the concentration camps in World War 2 or the terrible events in Rwanda. All of these things colour our view of life and so easily make us cynical and untrusting. When we are confronted with the love of God it is all too easy to not believe; we think it cannot be true that God just loves us! Can it be true that He has no ulterior motive, He is expecting nothing from us, He will not take advantage of us, betray our trust or otherwise abuse us? He simply loves us. We only know a little about John’s life, but at some point he had come to realise that God loved him. Whatever experiences he had in his past did not stop him believing that God loved Him.

This is probably one of the most fundamental issues any of us has to face. Do we believe that God loves us? We may have a thousand reasons why we ask whether such a thing is true, but none of them changes the truth that we are loved by God. We have to push through all the doubts, all the reasoning and all the challenges, to this simple truth and come face to face with this love. We may not understand all that happened in our life, we may not have any idea what life holds for us next, nor can we see the way forward. But we can come to believe, in fact must believe, this glorious truth that God loves us and can be trusted whatever happens!

And for you, can it be said that you have known the love of God and beyond that, have BELIEVED the love that God has for you?