How is radical love possible?
Today's Verse
12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is perfected in us.13By this we know that we remain in Him, and He in us: He has given us of His Spirit.14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world.15If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.16And we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us. God is love; whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him.17In this way, love has been perfected among us, so that we may have confidence on the day of judgment; for in this world we are just like Him.18There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. The one who fears has not been perfected in love.19We love because He first loved us.20If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.21And we have this commandment from Him: Whoever loves God must love his brother as well.1 John 4 · BSB
The Devotion
In 1875, there was a painter in Paris named Marcel de Leclure. He decided he was so in love with a woman named Magdalene de Villalore that he hired a scribe to write a letter to her repeating the words in French, "I love you," 1,875,000 times. Incredibly, Marcel dictated each phrase of "I love you" every time, and the scribe wrote. The scribe read it back to him every time, and the phrase was spoken and written 5.6 million times. Robert Ripley said about this story: "Never was love made manifest by as great an expenditure of time and effort."
With all due respect to Ripley, that's not true. Jesus is the fullest expression of God's love and demonstrated God's love even to the point of death on the cross. I love how John makes it plain. We love because he first loved us. We love other people because he loved us. If we don't love other people, we don't love God or even know Him.
John 15:9, Jesus said the same thing: "I have loved you just as the Father has loved me. You must go on living in my love." This radical, amazing, sacrificial love from above shows and shares Jesus with a lost and dying world. That's why John says, "for in this world we are just like Him." You may be the only Jesus someone else sees today. Abide in His love and let it flow on to others.
Lord, thank you for demonstrating your love to me on the cross. I love you. Give me the love I need for those around me, especially my brothers and sisters in Christ. Thank you that perfect love in God casts away fear, that I don't have to fear anyone or anything else when I fear love and know you. I love and worship you today, Father, in your Son Jesus Christ's name. Amen.
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