Love

1 Jn. 3:18

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

The message we have heard from the beginning is love. By its very nature love never fails or changes. It will endure because love is of God. How blessed we are because His love has been poured in our hearts through the Holy Spirit! Certainly there are some corrupt versions of love in the world and even in the church which is why John is writing. He warns that the world will hate us because we have eternal life, and the great evidence of eternal life is love.  

But how do we know how to love? We look at the example of Jesus who loved sacrificially and to the point of death. When we see a need, as Jesus saw our need, and if we meet that need in love, then our words will be seen in our actions. By love, we shall know that we are of the truth because we will love as Christ loved. 

And this love must grow into obedience to all that Jesus said. When we love in deed and in truth, and keep His commandments, we know that this is pleasing to Him. But if and when sin creeps into our lives, and conviction follows close on its heels, we can still believe and have faith in God because love makes forgiveness possible. Hearts full of the love and forgiveness can ask what they will and receive because they keep His commandments and do what pleases Him. We do not ask out of selfish motives or for our advantage, but we ask with the mind of Christ, a mind set on pleasing Him. 

And this is the commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as He has commanded us. Whoever keeps His commandments abides in God, and God in Him. And by this we know that He abides in us, but he Spirit whom He has given. 

Father,

Thank You for such great love. I want to be obedient and pleasing to You. I want to share Your love with those You bring into my life.