Character God grows
Loading 1 John 4:19…
The order in this short verse is the whole of Christian ethics. Love is a response, not an achievement, and it begins outside us. That is why the New Testament can command love: it is asking us to pass on what we have already received.
A prayer from this passage
Father, You loved me first, before I wanted You. Let that love work its way through me to the people who are hardest to love. Save me from a love that is only words.
Key truth
Christian love is the overflow of God's prior love for us, not a feeling we generate on our own.
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A single morning's reading, if you would rather not begin a whole plan.
Daily reading · 30 Days in the Psalms · Love of Scripture
This opening section of the longest psalm in the Bible describes someone who delights in God's law rather than merely obeying it out of duty, and hides God's word in his heart specifically so he will not sin against him.
Daily reading · The Gospel of John in 21 Days · Servant love
On the night before his death, Jesus takes the role of the lowest servant and washes his disciples' feet, then tells them to do the same for one another. Greatness in his kingdom looks like a towel and a basin, not a throne.
Daily reading · Wisdom: Proverbs in 31 Days · Friendship
A friend loves at all times, the chapter says, and true friendship is marked by covering an offense rather than repeating it to others. Loyalty that only shows up when it is convenient was never real loyalty in the first place.
Daily reading · Wisdom: Proverbs in 31 Days · Correction
Faithful are the wounds of a friend, the chapter says, while the kisses of an enemy are deceitful, meaning that honest correction from someone who loves you is worth more than flattery from someone who does not.
Daily reading · Hope: An Advent Reading Plan · Covenant love
This psalm celebrates God's steadfast love and faithfulness as things that will be sung about forever, established as firm as the heavens, rooted in the covenant promises he made to David's line long before Christ arrived to fulfill them.
Daily reading · Hope: An Advent Reading Plan · Waiting
The psalmist cries out of the depths and says his soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, and roots that waiting in God's steadfast love and full redemption. It is a psalm written for anyone still waiting on a promise.
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Verse-by-verse teaching with historical context, and a prayer to close. Nothing else in the email.