Love In Action
10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
Love one another
11This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother's were righteous. 13Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.
21Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him. 23And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 24Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.
Bee's Thoughts:
A simple act of caring is a powerful expression of God’s compassion in our troubled world. The apostle John wrote, “My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:18). Is there some “washing” you can do today? —David C. McCasland
Love is not just a feeling... it must be accompanied with actions (v17). For feeling fades but love stays even when feeling goes away.
Sometimes we may ask ourselves why we constantly do something nice only for a certain person which we don't do for others. We know that this person is special to us, but we don't know why he/she is so special. We may not have any romantic feeling for this person, but isn't that love in action? On the contrary, we may have strong feeling for another yet what we do to him/her may be only for our selfish desire.
The world's definition of love is very confusing. But God's definition of love is that we should be able to lay down our live for someone we claim to love (v16).
Dear Lord,
Teach me Your way of love. Teach me to be willing to lay down my life for the one I love, just like You did for me. Teach me to love in purity with actions. Teach me to love...
Amen.
Tommy's Thoughts:
Christian love is not only an action but a choice. We can choose to be concerned with other’s well-being, helping them in their needs and treating them with respect, whether or not we feel affection for them. We can choose to put other’s desires first rather than ours; serving them selflessly without expecting anything in return.
When we make the conscious effort to choose to love others, God will teach us in expressing that love.
Dear Father, thank You for teaching me again about the meaning of your version of love and the sacrificial giving to those in need. Lead me always to set my heart on Your love and to learn loving others the right way. I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.
