Love is the Answer

Our love for others is our grateful response to the love God first demonstrated to us. Anyone can say, “I love God,” yet have hatred toward another believer. This makes him a phony, because if you don’t love a brother or sister, whom you can see, how can you truly love God, whom you can’t see? For he has given us this command: whoever loves God must also demonstrate love to others.

─ 1 John 4:19-21 (TPT)

If you asked a room full of people, “What is the Bible really about?” you would receive a myriad of different answers, but one theme in particular would stand out. That would be love—God’s love for us, our love for Him and His desire for us to love one another.

Our lives are all about love: loving God and loving each other. The apostle John said in our verse today, “We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister” (NIV).

Love is a challenging command. Our natural tendency is to live a self-centered life. Once we come to experience God’s love through a personal relationship with Jesus, we can continually experience His love working in us and through us.

Here are three essentials necessary to experience a life of love. We will explore these more deeply in tomorrow’s devotional. So check back in tomorrow. But for now, we leave you with:

1. Choose daily to live in the love of God.
2. Overcome past perceptions of love.
3. See people as God does.

When Paul prepared to close his first letter to the Corinthians, he wrote, “Let all that you do be done with love.”  May it become our prayer to allow that to be said of us as we intentionally choose to live a life of love.

Today’s One Thing

Is there anyone who came to your mind as you were reading this? Perhaps someone you struggle to love? Go to God in prayer today and ask Him to forgive you for how you feel about that person. Ask Him to help you show them love in a new and special way, and then take action when God gives you the opportunity to demonstrate His love through you to that person.

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