Devotional Messages

DEVOTIONAL MESSAGE

I John 4:7, 12 – Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. … No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. (NRSV)

How do you know what you know?  Sometimes we learn things by reading about them or watching them happen.  Sometimes someone else gives us information or tells us a story.  But there are also things we know that we cannot see directly; instead, we know them in our hearts or our bones or our guts.  Many of the things we know about love fall into this last category.

How can you tell if someone loves you?  Hearing them say it might be one way, but we know that words aren’t always used as honestly as they should be.  We experience love through what happens, how someone treats us, and how they make us feel.  The same is true of us in relation to others.  If we claim to love someone but don’t make time for them, don’t take their interests into account, or don’t listen to them, it isn’t very believable.

The same is true about God.  We show our love for God by making time for God.  We live out our love for God by loving what God loves, our fellow humans and the rest of creation.  This is also how we can show others that God loves them too, by being loving toward them and making the connection to our love for God.  That is the life of love Jesus is continually calling us into.

Some people may never know God’s love if we don’t make it clear in how we treat them.  They may only hear of churches excluding and judging people, and understandably, come to the conclusion that God’s “love” isn’t very loving and not something they want to pursue.  But if we, as a church, can show God’s love by being truly loving – generous, welcoming, affirming, sincere, and caring – then maybe they will be able to believe that God is loving too.