Week 52: Loving
Weekly Chapters:
II Peter 1 - Revelation 22
Passage of the Week:
I John 4:19
Adjective:
Felling or showing love; warmly affectionate; fond
Thesaurus:
Admiring
Affectionate
Amiable
Attentive
Benevolent
Caring
Devoted
Faithful
Warm
Father God,
Thank you for the ability to love and to be loved in return. Seeing love all around us in the beauty of the animals as they care for their young, in the ants as they help each other with tasks, in humans as we care for each other demonstrates Your love for us. We can choose to be loving or not loving, but your commandment is always to choose love. Father God, give me the desire to show love even when I do not want to, a willingness to take care of others and accept others, refraining from judgment. Please give me the guidance in your word today to do so.
Amen
Authentic vulnerability:
Someone once said that first love is the best love. While I think it may cause the most butterflies, I am not sure it is the best love. With my husband, those first love feelings were incredible, the heart jumps, the anticipation of seeing each other, the desire for each other. Those first feelings of love have been replaced by a love that has stood the test of time, more profound love, more forgiving love, more connected. That love that I felt when I held my kids for the first time was in development for nine months, singing to my babies, feeling their movement, seeing them for the first time was a developed love. Thank goodness we create this bond in our bellies because these guys can get tricky with sleepless nights and the inability to communicate in words after their birth. Our love for our parents evolved as well. We progressed from thinking they hung the moon as children to thinking they knew nothing as adolescents to think they hung the moon again in our adult years. Love develops, and thank goodness it does. It deepens and flexes with time. It is not stagnant. So, God’s command to love one another and show love to all should be easy, right?
What is your Authentic Truth?
Study:
John was known to be one of Jesus’ favorites. He was the one who leaned on Jesus at the last supper and who was an eyewitness to much of Jesus’ miracles. John felt the love of Jesus directly and wanted to encourage others to share the love of Christ Jesus.
At the time of this writing, some heretics took on new beliefs about spirit (good) and body (bad). Some were false prophets steering people from God’s word (I John 4:1-3). While Jesus preached love and acceptance, these new teachers did not exhibit love for one another. John’s letters persuade new believers to stay the course, follow God’s teaching, and love one another. John wants to take the believers back to basics, fundamentals, God’s principles.
John comes to us in I John and speaks to everyone, despite where we are in our spiritual walk. He says to children (new Christians), young men (adolescent Christians not quite mature in faith), and fathers (those who are mature in faith). Based on the translation, you will see each term used interchangeably (for example, fathers interchange with those who are mature in faith or young men who are young in faith). With love, John encourages all of us, every one of us, to live as commanded by God’s word (Commandments in the Torah, or first five books of the Bible). He further says that those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did (I John 2:6). John tells his friends that this is not a new commandment, but a commandment from the beginning: love one another.
1 John 2:12-14
12 I am writing to you who are God’s children because your sins have been forgiven through Jesus.
13 I am writing to you who are mature in the faith because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning. I am writing to you who are young in the faith because you have won your battle with the evil one.
14 I have written to you who are God’s children because you know the Father. I have written to you who are mature in the faith because you know Christ, who existed from the beginning. I have written to you who are young in the faith because you are strong. God’s word lives in your hearts, and you have won your battle with the evil one.
We see throughout I John that John wants to encourage us to follow Christ and the teachings of God, not to be persuaded by non-believers. He cautions that those of the world will hate us, but we are to keep loving others (I John 3:13-14) and likens not loving one another to being a murderer (I John 3:15).
The whole premise can be broken down to I John 4:19, “We love each other because he loved us first.”
What would the world look like if we all followed these commandments:
Love God
Love your parents
Love each other
Would it look much different than it does now? John speaks of the new commandment in Christ, which is a commandment from the beginning—love God, love each other.
Father God,
You sent your Son. Sending your Son is true love, love for each of us, past and future generations. We did nothing to garner Your love, nothing to earn it, yet, You freely gave. Father God, thank You for loving us even when we lack the capacity to love as You love. Give us the desire and ability to love more deeply.
Amen.
Homework:
Write a list of those love. Next, write a list of those you find difficult to love
Write three ways that you can show those on both lists active love
Do at least one of the three activities today
