Scripture: 1 John 4:7–10 (ESV) —“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
It says in 1 Corinthians 13:4–7:
“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Hardly anything could sound as good as that. But when you read it, you objectively have to conclude that love, in all of its splendor, can also be characterized as one other thing we often don’t like to admit—love is hard.
The truth is, we make it harder than it needs to be. Yes, it’s difficult. It reaches deep into your emotional well and asks for more than you could ever contain. It’s unfair, because even in your dealings with enemies, love demands that you value them as a soul Jesus died for.
To take it further, love stretches you to an even deeper level with those you care about most. It could be your kids, your spouse, or maybe your parents. In the midst of wanting them to meet your emotional longing for connection, the disappointment you feel when they inevitably fall short is heartbreaking.
Here’s the problem: love is toxic when it’s governed by your flesh. Your flesh can’t erase the genesis of your love for each other, but it will always seek to shift the scales in your favor. So much so that your passion for loving them is gradually replaced by your desire for them to love you more.
There is a song with a line that says, “All we need is love.” That is actually not true. You can see why all around you. The earth is full of people who desire love and desire to love. If there were a store where they could buy love in bulk, you wouldn’t be able to keep it stocked. If it only came down to desiring love, this world would be void of the divisiveness that plagues it. The core problem is the heart of man that seeks to govern love. Not only do we want to control the way we love each other—we want to control how God loves us.
What we really need is love born out of connection with Jesus. Simply put, your longing for connection with the ones you care about will remain an unfair expectation unless it originates from your abiding connection with Christ.
Later in 1 John 4:12, it says, “If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
The common misreading of this verse may be the reason you try to love so well but come up so short. There is almost a natural inclination to read passages like this through a bifocal lens that confuses your heart. On one hand, the lens of God’s love motivates you to desire the manifestation of it in your relationships. On the other hand, the lens of your carnal side convinces you it’s achievable through human effort.
There are days when, if you were to write a paraphrase of verse 12 based on what your flesh says, it would sound like this:
The only way God will be willing to abide in me is when I prove I have figured out how to love the people in my life.
Perhaps it’s the little child in you saying to God: You won’t be proud of me unless I do well. Though parents don’t always get it right, you can rest assured that God’s pride in you will never be based on what you do. It will only ever be predicated on who you are—His child.
While we may believe the lie that the availability of God’s love is dependent on how well we love, the truth is we have no chance to truly love the way He desires unless—and until—we first abide in Him.
Attempting to love others outside of fellowship with Him would be like trying to quench your thirst by drinking sand. You may acknowledge your thirst and fill a cup with something to drink, but unless the cup contains the right thing, you have no chance of being satisfied. Perhaps this truth may grant you patience and grace for those seeking satisfaction by drinking sand.
In the end, your emotional well has no capacity to love without first abiding in Christ. Abiding in Him is the pipeline of genuine love that will sustain you and your relationships. Let this day—and every day after it—be filled with your complete dependence on Him as the source of genuine connection with Him and others.
Reflection:
After praying through and reflecting on 1 John 4, what would it look like for you to reorder your day to abide in His love?
How have you possibly gotten things reversed when it comes to trying to love others well while maybe not first receiving His love well?
Ask God to show you how you might be trying to control the way He loves you—and, in turn, the way others love you. Do you feel heartbroken by those closest to you because of an unfair expectation that they can fill your emotional well the way only God can?
Ask God to meet you today in a way that redefines how you see abiding. Ask Him for a level of intimacy that will transform your earthly relationships.
What will be the most obvious change in your relationships if you abide in Him?