Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
What do you want to be known for in life? When all is said and done and you've spent your time on this earth, what do you hope people think about when they think about you? I know for me, the first couple of things that come into mind is I want to be known as a wonderful husband. I want to be known as a good father who raised children in the fear of the Lord. Sometimes I even want to just be known for being a hard worker. There are so many things that I would love to be known for.
There's something that's far more important that all believers should strive to be known for. Jesus tells us that as His followers, what we should care most about is that people know us for our love. That begs the question, how can we love the way that Jesus wants us to love?
The Source of True Love
I think a great starting point for that is in our Verse of the Day today, and it comes from the book of 1 John chapter 4, verse 19. The apostle John says this: "We love each other because He first loved us."
Not all love is created equal. Here's what I mean by that. I can say that I love pizza, or I can say that I love my family, and those are two different kinds of love. I could say that I love watching sports, and I could say that I love my coworkers. Hopefully those are two different kinds of love.
When we think about being known for our love, it's not this generic form of love because everybody loves something in their own unique way. The way that we're called to love is to show a Christ-like love. How can we do that? Well, this verse tells us that we love because He first loved us. It starts with knowing and experiencing the love of Jesus.
Learning to Love from Our First Love
I want you to think about the person that you love most in life. For me, that's my wife. We met when we were 19, barely out of high school, and we've been together ever since. She knows everything about me and I know everything about her. We share in everything together, and I would genuinely do anything for her. But she would be the first to tell you that over the years it hasn't come without hard moments.
Moments where I failed her. I let her down. Where I wronged her, or where I hurt her. Has that meant that I stopped loving her? Well, I would say that I never stopped loving her, but rather what I was showing her was this incomplete, this imperfect kind of love. A love that I was mustering up by myself in those seasons.
That forces me to go back to my first love, Jesus, to sit with Him, to know the power of His love, to know how He demonstrates that so that I can pour out from that well when I show love to her and to the people around me. This verse talks about how our ability to love the right way comes from knowing Jesus's love first. Without spending time in His love, we will never be known for the right kind of love.
Our Responsibility to Love
Let’s take this verse a step further. This is not only talking about our ability to love, but also our responsibility to love. John doesn't say we can love if we want to because He loved us first. I believe the implication is that we will love when we know the love of Jesus.
God's love is so infectious. If you actually know the depths of it and everything that God has done to call you His own, that He sent His only Son to die for your sins so that He could look at you as a son and daughter and spend eternity with you, not because He needs you, but because He wants you. That's like hearing the best news ever. News that you can't help but share with the people around you.
I truly believe if you know and experience the love of God, you will have to show that to everybody around you. For all of us, when we think about what we should be known for, it's not the job title. It's not the money that we leave behind. It's the way that we loved others because our God loved us first. Now it's time for us to show that love to the world.
