Ever have someone show up at just the right moment? A neighbor who brings soup when you’re sick. A friend who texts, “You crossed my mind — just checking in.” It’s simple, but it is the kind of love that speaks to your heart and sticks with you.
That kind of love doesn’t come out of nowhere. 1 John 4 reminds us: God is love. And our love comes from God.
The Most Quoted Line in the Letter, and the Most Misread
“God is love” has traveled further than almost any sentence in the Bible. It turns up on coffee mugs and bumper stickers, usually meaning something like God is nice, or God approves of whatever I am doing.
John meant something much sharper. Remember who he was writing against: teachers who claimed spiritual maturity was about secret knowledge, and who were perfectly happy to be enlightened while treating other people badly. John’s answer is brutal in its simplicity. You want to know if someone knows God? Watch how they treat people.
He says it twice, and neither time is gentle. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God. And later: anyone who claims to love God while hating a brother or sister is a liar — because if you cannot love the person you can see, you are not loving the God you cannot.
So “God is love” is not a comfort blanket. It is a test. And John is applying it to us, not to God.
He Loved First
God showed us how to love first. He sent Jesus — not because we earned it, but because His love couldn’t leave us behind.
Here’s the Good News: God loved us enough to send and sacrifice His Son so we could live fully and freely, forgiven and whole, and receive eternal life through Him.
And because of that? We love — because He loved us first. We love — because He still loves us now.
Notice the direction of that. Our love is never the starting point. It is always a response, always downstream of something already given. That takes an enormous amount of pressure off. You are not generating this. You are passing it on.
Love Is a Choice, Not a Feeling
The commandment we have from Jesus Christ about love is direct and blunt: loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both — no exceptions.
Love isn’t just a feeling. It’s a choice. A daily decision to live out God’s love in real, practical ways. To show up. To forgive. To speak kindly. To serve.
Which is a relief, honestly. If love were a feeling, you would be stuck waiting for it to arrive. Because it is a decision, you can make it on a day when you do not feel a thing.
What This Looks Like on a Tuesday
It looks like the soup. The text message. The ride to the appointment. The person you have been meaning to call for three months.
It also looks like the harder version: being decent to the person who has given you every reason not to be. John does not leave that one out, and neither should we.
Watch This Week’s Devotional
A Prayer for This Week
Father, You loved me first, and I keep forgetting that it started with You. Give me love for the person I find hardest this week — not the feeling, just the willingness. Let me show up before I feel like it. Amen.
The Passage
“My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love.”
Read the passage in full on Bible.com.
Taking It Into Your Week
- Think of one person — maybe the hard-to-love one, or someone who’s been quietly struggling — and reach out. Send the message. Offer the help. Show up.
- Read 1 John 4:7-21 today and let God’s love become complete in you. Not just felt, but lived.
- Notice where you are loving God in theory and skipping the people part.
More Farm Sunday Devotionals
Pass on the Good News. Now that’s BombDiggity.
Written by
Lane and Jules Morris
Authors and University of Tennessee faculty writing from our farm in East Tennessee about gardening, the farm kitchen, faith and designing a flourishing life at any age. More about us
