God is Love

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Scripture: 1 John 4:13-16 (NIV)

This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

Devotion:

            This is a call to be assured of God’s love for us. The God who loves us makes His home in us through the work of the Holy Spirit. These verses remind us that we, as Christians, do not build our lives on our feelings, performance, or strength. Our lives are built on the faithful presence of God’s Spirit within us. John writes to believers in every age who lack confidence in God’s provision for them by assuring us that God has claimed us as His own.

            These verses begin by saying that we can know that we abide in God and He in us because he has implanted the Holy Spirit within us. This is not some vague spiritual feeling but a living presence of God with us and in us. This presence shapes our desires, convicts our hearts, comforts our fears and anxieties, drawing us toward Jesus. The same Spirit comforts us by its quiet residence in our hearts, which confirms we are God’s friends. God is the one who makes our belief turn into trust, our knowledge into love, and turns dry doctrine into Spirit-led living. No matter what the world, the flesh, or the Devil may throw at us, this Spirit anchors us in the truth that God will never abandon us.

            We are reminded of the apostles' witness, who testify that God the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Our faith rests on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and we step into life in the Spirit. John says, when we confess this, God abides in us. Salvation is not merely forgiveness; it is union. We are gathered into the life of the Holy Trinity and held in a love that existed before the world began.

            The peak of the passage is when the Spirit, speaking through John, declares that “God is love.” God doesn’t simply love, but His very nature is love. So, when we live in love, receiving it, trusting in it, and extending it to God and others, then we are living in God. The love that Christ reveals in us is not some sentimental love, but rather a love that moves out toward others, healing the broken-hearted and casting out all fear. It is a love that changes us from the inside out.

Prayer:

            Dear Jesus, thank you for loving us enough to come and die for us. Thank you for sending the Holy Spirit to live in us so we can love others with the same kind of love. Help us to rely on this same Spirit to lead us as we live our daily lives. Help us to love others sacrificially, always seeking the best for others. In your name we ask this, Amen. 

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