“Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”
1 John 3:18 NASB1995
After our month-long sojourn through sin and virtues, it’s time to get back to the basics of God’s Word. As most long-time subscribers know and as I’m about to tell the new subscribers (Hi, everyone!!! We’re blessed to have you here!), I ask God to help me pick devotional topics with a modern-day urim and thummim known as a random number generator. It picks a number between 1 and 16, and I use that to choose a topic. Today’s pick was #1 - Love.
Our verse for the day is from the first epistle of John. Now, this is widely believed by modern Biblical scholars to be John the Evangelist, not John the Apostle, but as far as I’m concerned, it makes no difference. The Johannine Epistles (there are three of them) are beautifully written and were instrumental in focusing early Christians on their faith.
John is pointing out here that it’s easy to say “I love you”, but real love is demonstrated in actions. Here are some on-point commentaries about 1 John 3:18:
“Here is a test of this love; if we do not divide our bread with the hungry, we certainly would not lay down our life for him. Whatever love we may pretend to mankind, if we are not charitable and benevolent, we give the lie to our profession.”1
“It is easier to be enthusiastic about Humanity with a capital ‘H’ than it is to love individual men and women, especially those who are uninteresting, exasperating, depraved, or otherwise unattractive. Loving everybody in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular.”2
Real love is difficult! Jesus is the perfect example of real love, having given His life for our salvation. There are thousands, perhaps millions of ways to demonstrate your love through actions; all you need to do is to prayerfully ask God what to do in every interaction with your fellow human beings that shows His love shining through you.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Father in Heaven, help me to demonstrate a real love for everyone, giving me the strength to truly love even those people who do their best to be unlovable. Show me how to honestly love You and other people with a pure heart, through my actions rather than my words. AMEN.
Clarke, Adam "Clarke's Commentary: The Holy Bible Containing the Old and New Testaments with a Commentary and Critical Notes" Volume 6 (Romans-Revelation) (New York: Eaton and Mains, 1832)
Stott, John R.W. (quoting C.S. Lewis) "The Letters of John" (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries) (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988)