Love
Life Changing One Word Truths — Devotion 5 of 20
1 John 4:9-10 — “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
Opening Reflection
Few words have been more thoroughly emptied of meaning than the word love. It is used for God and for pizza, for spouses and for sports teams, for the eternal and for the trivial. The casual range of the word has so worn it down that, when Scripture uses it, the modern reader can easily miss what is being said. The Bible does not define love by sentiment, attraction, or affection. It defines love by God Himself, and supremely by what He has done at the cross. To recover the weight of love, the believer must let Scripture say what love is and refuse to settle for what the world has reduced it to.
Taking a Devotional View
The apostle John writes from long pastoral experience and offers one of the clearest definitions of love in all of Scripture: “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” John refuses to abstract love from God's action. Love was made manifest — made visible, demonstrated — when the Father sent the Son. Love, John insists, is not a movement that begins with us. It begins with God. And it does not stop at sympathy; it goes the full distance to propitiation, the satisfying of divine justice in the death of Christ on behalf of sinners. Biblical love has a definition with a cross at its center.
Because love begins with God, the believer's love does not have to be manufactured. John writes a few verses later, “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). The Christian's love for God and for others is a response — drawn out by what has been received. Paul anchors this same truth in Romans 5:8: “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” This is the love by which the believer was reached, and it is also the standard by which the believer is now called to love others. Jesus made it explicit on the night before His death: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). The world will recognize a disciple not chiefly by knowledge or zeal, but by love that mirrors the love of Christ.
Key Thoughts & Takeaways
Key Thoughts
- Biblical love is defined by God's character and demonstrated at the cross, not by sentiment or attraction (1 John 4:9-10).
- Love did not begin with us; it begins with God and is received before it is given (1 John 4:19).
- The cross is the standard by which the believer is now called to love others (Romans 5:8; John 13:34).
- Love is the unmistakable mark of a disciple in a watching world (John 13:35).
Ask Yourself
- Have I allowed the culture's diluted use of the word love to shape what I expect it to mean?
- Am I trying to manufacture love for God, or am I receiving His love and letting it draw mine out?
- Where is the Lord calling me to love someone in the way Christ has loved me?
- Would the people around me recognize me as a disciple of Jesus by the love I show them?
Father, thank You that love did not begin with me but with You, and that You demonstrated it not in words alone but in the gift of Your Son. I confess that I have often settled for a smaller, easier love than the one You have shown me. Reach me again with the love of the cross, and let what I receive there shape the way I love You and the people You have placed in my life. Make Your love so visible in me today that others would know I belong to Christ. In Jesus' name, amen.