DAY 9 – Love well…?

Today’s Scripture:

1 John 4:7-16 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

John was the one that the scripture says directly – Jesus loved him

Now there was leaning on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved.

John 13:23

He was nicknamed over the centuries as John the Beloved

BELOVED – Loved; greatly loved; dear to the heart.

I love that John doesn’t keep this title to Himself but rather bestows it on us through all of his writing. This is who we are! Beloved and he encourages us to love like that.

But this love comes from God – because God is love. And here is the foundation of that love:

In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

He gave His life so that we may live from that love that He gave us. But there is one more thing in there… do you see it? He is the propitiation for our sins.

DR. BURK PARSONS said, “Propitiation is one of the most important theological words, it’s a very, very important word. We come across it first in the translation before me in Romans 3:23-26, in Hebrews 2:17, and in 1 John chapter 2 and 4. the word propitiation simply put means “satisfaction.” It means that Christ, in His perfect life and atoning, substitutionary death, that He satisfied the wrath of God against our sin and against us.

Do you know what that means?! The scripture is true!

love covers all sins.

Proverbs 10:12

 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. ³⁵ By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John 13:34-35

Action: Take inventory today. How well are you loving? Or do you find that your heart is angry at people, suspicious of them, and believing they are up to no good even though you have nothing other than your thoughts and perspective to go on. Take time to repent and ask God for a clean heart and eyes that see people how He does. Also, how well are we receiving love? From God, from others or do we block that love with reasons and expectations?

Loving and receiving love then become so important. But for the most part, most people seek qualifiers. Do they deserve my love? Do I deserve it? The answer has always been no. We don’t deserve it, but He gave it. And asks us to give it too. Sit on that one today.

I hope I love well. I have a bent toward suspicion and when I hear it come out of my mouth, I know my heart is struggling. There are times that I am put in positions to make decisions, and I hear my thoughts of qualifiers. And one of the things I say is “Does that even matter?” Almost always the call to help, go, love, serve, give is a test of my willingness to love. And honestly, would Jesus give it. Yes. He gave all. The hard part is when “what is best” conflicts with the expectation of what is wanted. Helping sometimes means not giving into obvious use and abuse or manipulation. And the great good for the soul is to pray and help them understand the space they are in. When we get a revelation things change or in different terms when we know better, we do better.

Being on the flip side of this is definitely difficult. Receiving God’s love and godly love can feel like “why me?” and “I don’t deserve this” and that’s true. But we are called to receive the revelation from scripture that we are BELOVED. It is our identity. It changes how we see God, others, and ourselves. And we have to be careful because sometimes we may start to think that we deserve this love because we are beloved and something in us tries to extract it from others in the form that we want. But we must learn to receive the love that is given and ask God to help us receive it, learn from it, and grow through it. Even if it kills our flesh. Which it should. We don’t deserve it, and we certainly can’t control it.

Thanks for listening,

Starla