"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well."
1 John 5:1 (NIV)
Loving God was supposed to be the easy part. Loving the people who claim to follow Him is a different story entirely. Some of them are difficult, inconsistent, or hard to be around some days. John says you cannot actually separate the two the way you have tried.
John states it as a plain, unavoidable fact about you. New birth and real love for others are never actually separate things. If you belong to the Father, you belong to His other children too. That is not poetic language but a spiritual fact about you.
Peter wrote to believers scattered far from home and from each other. In 1 Peter 1:22, he told them to love one another deeply, from the heart. Deeply is the key word, not politely or from a comfortable distance. That kind of love always costs you something real to give it.
This is not about staying close to someone who has hurt or abused you. Real safety and real wisdom are never the opposite of real love. But some of us avoid people simply because loving them costs us comfort. John is not talking about danger but about that kind of avoidance.
There is likely one person you have quietly written off for smaller reasons. Not because they endangered you, but because loving them felt inconvenient. So you may know, that distance was never meant to replace real love for God. Your love for God was never meant to skip over that person.
Godseekers, your love for God was never meant to stay private. It was always meant to reach the person standing right in front of you. You are born of God, and that birth shows up in how you love. Go love someone today the way you already claim to love God.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, You are the One who loved us before we loved anyone well. Your love reached us while we were still distant and hard to love. You are fully able to soften what has grown hard in us. You are fully able to make love for others feel possible again. We declare that our love for You will show up in how we love others. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Personal Reflection
- Who is one specific person you have found difficult to love this week?
- Where might people in your generation need to see love that costs something real?
Step of Faith
Today, do one act of service for someone without telling them why. Choose someone you have found difficult to love lately. Let this small act be proof of what your faith already believes.
