I was busy preparing for Bible study—arranging comfy chairs, lighting a scented candle, laying out our curriculum—when I was overcome with love for the women in my group. We are a small group of women in our 20s and 30s. Some of us are working corporate jobs and some of us are in graduate school. Some of us are married and some of us are single. Some of us have been Christians our whole lives and some of us just recently met Jesus. Our time together is so sweet to me, and these women have taught me how to love God with my whole life.
Later that night, a woman shared that she was going to be moving soon and did not know how she was going to pack up her house, move heavy furniture, and unpack at her new place. I’m ashamed to admit that my first thought was, “Someone else can do that.” I am busy with work and school; my schedule barely has room for me to get my own annoying home tasks finished! As the room around me heartily offered to help this woman move, I realized how shallow and phony my earlier love really was.
Love requires action.
We cannot say we love other people and then refuse to serve them, sacrifice for them, and seek their flourishing. In our passage today, John gave us a sweeping and radical picture of what real love looks like. When he said everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows God, he meant only God can give His children the ability to love others with truly self-sacrificing love. In our brokenness and sinfulness, we cannot love each other this way. We will be selfish with our relationships, seeking our own gain and disregarding the needs of others. But God gives us the Holy Spirit to indwell us and guide us to love each other with a radically selfless love.
1 John reminds us we cannot love each other like this on our own. True love is not in our love of each other or even our love of God, but in God’s love for us. God’s love required action too: He sent his Son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. This is the ultimate expression of true love. God could have expressed merely hypothetical love for us, feeling warm feelings about his broken creation from far away in heaven. He could have kept his distance, sending prophets to tell us He loved us without promising to do anything about our desperate situation. That is not the true love God has for us. He was not content to leave us in our suffering and brokenness, our evil and sin. His love was action, and that action was making the ultimate sacrifice for our sake.
As God has loved us, we are called to love each other. The world around us often only knows a selfish and greedy form of love: people who only spend time with you when it’s convenient for them, who only give as much as they can expect back, who want to have fun but flee when things are hard. Our love for each other—selfless, generous, active love—is a powerful witness to the world. For people hungry for real love, we can show a glimpse of the love God has shown us, and then we can introduce them to the greatest love of all.
-Kaitlyn
Week 2 - Friday
Love Requires Action
August 28, 2020 • Kaitlyn
Week 4 - Friday
September 11, 2020 • Sara
I grew up in a time and a place where WWJD? ("What would Jesus do?") bracelets were popular. There were so many of them in my day it spawned parodies and became almost cliche. But, at the heart of it, it’s a great question to ask in any situation. What would Jesus do? Would He have reached across a political aisle to love people with different opinions? Indeed. Would He have welcomed broken people and shown grace without watering down the God breathed truth of Scripture? Of course. But how do we actually live like Jesus? Third John 11 says, “Dear friend, do not imitate what is bad but what is good. The one who does good is of God; the one who does what is bad has not seen God.” It sounds relatively easy on the surface, but the world has a funny way of blurring boundaries. What’s superficially nice is not necessarily kind. What initially seems appropriate may be popularity or political correctness in disguise. Thankfully (and as usual), Scripture helps us. Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of respect, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if something is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things.” Galatians 5:22-23 also gives instruction on where we can focus our energy and what virtues the Holy Spirit can cultivate in our lives. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” We can’t imitate God’s power, His omnipotence, or His eternal presence, but we have the perfect example of goodness - and godliness - in Jesus. C.S. Lewis wrote about this beautifully in his work The Four Loves, saying, “our imitation of God in this life — that is, our willed imitation as distinct from any of the likenesses which He has impressed upon our natures or states — must be an imitation of God incarnate: our model is the Jesus, not only of Calvary, but of the workshop, the roads, the crowds, the clamorous demands and surly oppositions, the lack of all peace and privacy, the interruptions. For this, so strangely unlike anything we can attribute to the Divine life in itself, is apparently not only like, but is, the Divine life operating under human conditions.” We won’t ever be perfect, but we should fight and pray and practice to be His true apprentice. May the world see a glimpse of the goodness of our living God and of the hope of Heaven in our lives. -Sara
Week 4 - Thursday
September 10, 2020
Week 4 - Wednesday
September 9, 2020 • Brittany
“I have no greater joy than this: to hear that my children are living according to truth.” 3 John 4 A few years ago, a college mentor reached out to me after having not been in contact for years. We had been incredibly close during my undergraduate experience, but life happened. I moved away, got married, had a family, and after over a decade of living in different states - aside from a Christmas card and an occasional email - we no longer talked regularly. Every couple of years we’d catch up on all the big happenings in our life, and I’d find myself again soaking up her wisdom. One day, after one of our catch-up sessions, I opened up an email from her and saw these life-giving words, “I am so proud of the way you’re choosing to live your life.” Tears brimmed my eyes and spilled over onto my cheeks as those words, rich with the love of a mentor, spoke life over me. She viewed her guidance, her discipleship, and sacrifice of time and resources as an investment of love into my life. And because of her love of the Lord and love for me, all these years later I am still walking with the Lord (imperfectly) but striving to live my life in a way that is according to truth. I love how Jesus’s words in the Great Commission tell us that, as we go, we’re called to make disciples, “baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I [our heavenly Father] have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). Third John 4 shows us the beauty that comes from obeying the Great Commission: “I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my children are living according to truth.” There is a pure joy in knowing your work for the kingdom has produced good fruit. There is deep satisfaction knowing the work we’re doing today, the love we’re sharing with others, will one day take root and grow something faithful and true. Because isn’t that the way of the disciple? To know the deep riches of God’s love, to have been shown and taught it during our early years of our faith, to allow it to transform our lives into something beautiful – and then to one day be the one who takes the hand of a younger person in their faith and help them navigate the joys and heartaches of this life? To be a disciple of Jesus is to also be a disciple maker – and that is a good and life-giving calling, worthy of our utmost attention. Years later, I am now modeling the relationship I had with my mentor. Over cups of coffee and open Bibles, I meet with college girls in my church. We talk about life, sin, relationships, career choices – you name it! Sometimes we talk specifically about Scripture, other times we share about what’s going on with our lives. And I often walk away praying, “Father, keep her close to you. Let these moments not return void. Help her see your great love for her and allow it to change her life forever.” I don’t yet have the satisfaction of seeing the fruit God grows in their life, but what I do know is this: the great love God has called us to is one I can’t keep to myself. And I am confident in this, the one who began a good work in them, will complete it (Philippians 1:6). And I look forward to the day where I can send them an email and say, “I am so proud of the way you’re choosing to live your life” -Brittany