Title: This Is A Test / Topic: Love

Today’s Reading: Jeremiah 31; Jeremiah 32; 1 John 4

Scripture: 1 John 4:19-21
19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Observation: If I claim to be a follower of Christ, I am claiming to be a person who has received Christ's nature. This verse says that the reason I can love is that I received love from God first. God not only loved me, He gave His love to me -- to be my own. If I belong to God, His nature and therefore His love are within me. The natural result of God's nature within is to love as He loves. If I don't, there is a problem -- I must not have God's nature within.

Application: This is a test. It is a test of what is within me -- within each of us. It is easy to say, "I'm a Christian." But it's not always easy to love. Sometimes it's downright impossible without God's nature within. But if my claim to love the invisible God is true, I have to show it by loving the visible people around me.

Bottom line: Just like it says, "Whoever loves God must also love his brother."

Prayer: Lord, You make it so practical -- which is why it challenges me so often! Help me to love not only in intentions and words but also in motivation and in action. Help Your people to really love one another so that our testimony to the world will draw people to You.
This I pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.