"Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth."
1 John 3:18 (NIV)
It is easy to love the idea of love. You can talk about agapē, study it, post about it, and feel genuinely moved by it on a Sunday morning. But 1 John 3:18 draws a hard line between love that lives in your mouth and love that moves your hands and feet. God is not impressed by good intentions that never leave the starting line. He is looking for love that shows up, rolls up its sleeves, and does something.
Actions are where agapē becomes real and visible. Words of encouragement, prayer, and affirmation have their place in love. But 1 John 3:18 warns that when words are all we offer, we have stopped short of what agapē actually demands. Love that never moves from feeling to action, no matter how sincere it seems, has not yet become the self-giving, others-directed force Scripture describes. Agapē is always looking for somewhere to land.
Jesus never just talked about love. He demonstrated it at every turn. He touched lepers no one else would touch. He stopped for blind men crowds ignored. He washed feet that should have been washing His. And when words were not enough, He went all the way to a cross that cost Him everything. This is what love above all looks like when it stops being a concept and becomes a life. It gets its hands dirty so someone else doesn't have to.
The gap between what we say and what we do is where agapē goes to die. We tell people we are praying for them but never ask what they actually need. We say we love our family but give them whatever is left after everything else gets our best. We follow the way of love in our hearts but not in our schedules, our wallets, or our difficult conversations. As 1 John 3:18 puts it plainly, love in words alone is not love at all. It is a conversation that never becomes a commitment.
So be honest right now. Think about the people God has placed in your life and ask yourself what your love has actually cost you this week. Not what you felt, not what you planned, but what you did. Agapē is not measured in good intentions or warm feelings. It is measured in what you gave, what you sacrificed, and who is better today because you chose to show up for them.
Godseekers, God's word in 1 Corinthians 14:1 could not be clearer: follow the way of love. Not occasionally. Not when it is convenient. Not when the feeling finally arrives. This is a daily, relentless, eyes-open pursuit that God Himself is commissioning you to run. Everything you have sat with this week, the eternal worth of agapē, the Spirit as your source, the enemy who needs your prayer, the cost you are called to carry, it all comes down to this moment. Love above all is not a someday intention. It is a today decision with a real person and a real cost. Stop admiring it. Start doing it.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, You are a God of truth and You see every gap between what we say and what we actually do. We confess that we have often loved You and others with our words while keeping our hands and lives safely to ourselves. Forgive us and stir us. Let the agapē You poured into us through Your Spirit overflow into real, visible, costly action today. Make our love look less like a conversation and more like a life fully given. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Personal Reflection
- When you honestly measure your love by actions rather than intentions, what does the gap between the two reveal about where your heart actually is?
- Who in your life needs you to stop saying you love them and start showing it in a way that costs you something real?
Step of Faith
Today, choose one person God has placed on your heart this week and do one specific, tangible act of agapē for them, not because it is convenient, but because love above all demands more than words.
