How We Know Love

ByJim Stephens

Scripture: 1 John 3 TPT

16 This is how we have discovered love’s reality: Jesus sacrificed his life for us. Because of this great love, we should be willing to lay down our lives for one another. 17 If anyone sees a fellow believer in need and has the means to help him, yet shows no pity and closes his heart against him, how is it even possible that God’s love lives in him? 18 Beloved children, our love can’t be an abstract theory we only talk about, but a way of life demonstrated through our loving deeds. 19 We know that the truth lives within us because we demonstrate love in action, which will reassure our hearts in his presence. (1 John 3:16-19 TPT)

This is how we have discovered love’s reality: Jesus sacrificed his life for us!

This is how we know love: Jesus laid down his life for us. This is how we show love: We lay down our lives for one another.

Friends, it’s not enough for me to sit here and write some high-sounding words about love’s reality and living and loving like Jesus. Jesus didn’t pull any punches when he taught this stuff, and John isn’t pulling any punches as he brings it back to our attention. If I write these words and it isn’t working in my heart, it’s nothing but hypocrisy, empty words from a hard heart! God’s not interested in abstract theory, but a way of life demonstrated through loving deeds.

Awareness of a need is enough reason to act. “If I see a person’s need and have the means to help.” It doesn’t mean that I have to have the means to solve all the person’s problems, it just means I have the means to help. To provide a little relief. And you know what? It’s not guilt (“I have so much and he has so little!”), it’s compassion (“I want to help, even a little, even for a moment!”)

There’s the single mom who can’t work because the transportation and child care costs more than the pay. The senior citizen having to choose between filling a prescription and buying food. The guy at the corner with the cardboard sign. The kids at my grandson’s school whose only regular meals are breakfast and lunch at school. We know the truth lives in us not because we can quote “chapter and verse” from the Bible but because we demonstrate love in action. Love Does What It Can!

Prayer:

Father, May the truth live in us! May we do what love requires! Help us to realize that the awareness of the need is the commission to act. Amen!