Day 32: God’s Love is for All
John 3:16
The familiarity of this passage makes it easy to miss the challenge it presents to us. We are invited into eternal life with Christ now, to know His love and by His Spirit within us, make His love known. 1 John 3:16 tells us that “Jesus Christ laid down His life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” By saying this, John connects the act of Jesus laying down His life for us (John 10:11) to the call for followers of Jesus to lay down their lives for one another (1 John 3:16).
The invitation to follow Jesus requires daily surrender to His way. This is the essence of godliness, that we become like Him by doing the things that He does—first and foremost loving God, neighbor, and self by the grace of His Spirit within us. This means that John 3:16 is not only a statement of fact or a pithy summary about what God has done for us. It is also an invitation for us love the world the way God does—He gave the best of Himself in order to transform the world that was distant from Him, that even opposed Him. What about you? What would it look like for you to give of yourself, trusting that God might use that act of love to transform others? Who is He inviting you to love today in a tangible way?
Reflection Prayer
Lead me, Lord, in loving the world as You do. Transform my thinking about those around me to see that You withheld (and withhold) nothing in order to redeem the world. As I receive the grace You have given me through Christ, guide me in reflecting and extending that same grace to others. Amen.
Week 5: The Love of God
The Beatles famously said, “All you need is love.” The reality is that this statement is truer than most realize, but our understanding of love is limited—it is often dependent and conditional. That is not the love that people need; instead, we need true love.
God’s love displayed in Scripture and experienced in our lives goes beyond the love we know and experience on a daily basis. 1 John 4:16 says, “God is love.” Love is who He is; it is His character. He came to this earth to display this perfect love, to show Himself, and to provide an opportunity for all of us to experience what we long for—love.
Consider Romans 5:8: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
“All we need is love,” and the good news is that love is given to us in Jesus Christ.
— Jim Sappia