1 John 4:7

First John was written by the apostle John — one of Jesus's closest disciples — likely late in his life, as a letter to encourage early Christians who were experiencing confusion and division within their communities. In this verse, John makes a striking claim: love doesn't originate with us — it comes from God. And because of that, he argues, the presence of genuine love in a person is evidence that they know God. John uses the Greek word "agape" here — not romantic love or friendship, but a self-giving, unconditional love that chooses the good of another regardless of personal cost. He calls his readers "dear friends" — an affectionate address that itself models the very love he's describing.

God, I can't manufacture the kind of love this verse describes — it has to come from you. Fill me up with it today, especially for the people I find most difficult to love. Let what flows out of me be evidence of what lives inside me. Amen.

John could have written a theological treatise. Instead, after decades of walking with Jesus and watching the early church fracture and rebuild and fracture again, he wrote: "Dear friends, let us love one another." Not doctrine, not a list of rules — love. And not because it's easy or sentimental, but because he believed something startling: that love itself is a kind of evidence. That when you genuinely love someone — not the feeling, but the costly, showing-up, inconvenient, unglamorous kind — something of God is moving through you. That reframes things considerably. It means the moment you choose to forgive someone who hasn't asked for it, or sit with a grieving friend instead of trying to fix their pain, or extend patience you don't actually feel — you aren't just being a decent person. You are, in John's understanding, participating in something divine. The question isn't "am I loving enough?" It's "am I staying close enough to the source?" Love like this isn't manufactured — it's received, then given. What relationship in your life right now needs you to go back to the source before you try to give what you don't currently have?