www.bible.com/72/1jn.3.18.hcsb
Surely love is too important, too deep, too wonderful to be merely love. Yet this is John’s contention this morning. Is it possibly that love be mere talk? To say “I love you” is just talk? From what I hear, that’s the extremity of commitment for some and a true test of relationship for others. Some count this as proof that they are ready for cohabitation. Mere love, mere expression without commitment. There is saying “I love you” and showing “I love you” by doing. This is the difference John is teasing out here. Saying “I love you” in the backseat of a car or online is far less significant than saying “I love you” before a crowd of witnesses at the altar. It is less meaningful than when holding your wife, tearful after a long and difficult day, weeping how much she wishes she could help people more, angry at the world for its unfairness, and to simply hold her, knowing she has borne you four children, remembering with her that there are good times, that is love. It is love to willingly do dishes when you know she hates to do them. It’s dropping everything at a moment to see what she needs two rooms away.
Love is more than speech. It is action, commitment, a willingness to follow through with the promise of “I do.” Love isn’t just between humans either.
For the love we experience with God is much more. For his did God demonstrate His love for us? Did He scrawl “I love you” on the face of the moon? Did He send a Valentine’s card in the mail? He sent His Son. His only Son into a world that He knew would be hostile to him. He sent His Son to suffer and die for the sins of the world, to receive into Himself the extremity of His wrath for sin. You see, our God is an angry God, angry at sin and the men who commit it. Since Adam God has weighed and counted the sins of the men, preparing them for His wrath. God’s Justice must be served. God prepared a place called Hell to receive the souls of the damned for eternal torment and suffering to a degree we are not familiar. Sin is costly, and it must be paid for.
But the Love of God must also be satisfied. For His love is just as intense and infinite as His sense of justice. And there was only one answer to the intensity of His wrath, and that was the willingness to endure it through the perfect sacrifice of His Son on Calvary. For as infinite as His wrath is, so must also be the One willing to endure it, and that can only be Jesus, the God who became Man, and the Man for all of us. This is the Love of God.
Cards and flowers say love, but what really shows love? Don’t merely say love. Mean it. Do it.
God bless you today.
Meritt Musings 