Love Is, Love Does
For Meditation (Rick Hutton)
How would you define love? Would you know it if you experienced it? Would you know it if you saw it? What would you do if you “had” it? Can you foster love? If so, how can you make love grow? Perhaps an even more important question is, what is the definition of love?
Love is one of the most popular topics today. People write about it, create art about it, sing about it, talk about it, and search whole-heartedly for it. Despite all of our human musings about love, we often miss the mark on what love truly is.
In 1 John 4:7-21 love is mentioned 27 times. John has been building his whole letter to this point, and here he shows us what love is and what it does, and that without God, we’d have no idea about love. And the love that John writes about is far greater, deeper, wider, and more life transforming than we realize.
Read 1 John 4:7-21 and think about your understanding of love. Where does it come from? Who is it for? What kind of difference can it make in your life, and does it make a difference?
Love comes from God because God is love, and he’s given us his love in and through Jesus, and that love doesn’t just make a difference, it brings about a transformation. In our lives and in others. May those who don’t know Jesus yet see that love among us!
1 John 4:7–21
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. 18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 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. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.