2 John 1:6

The apostle John, one of Jesus' closest disciples, wrote this short letter — only 13 verses — to what appears to be a specific church community he cared for deeply. He's addressing a confusion that was already spreading: what does love actually look like in practice? His answer might surprise people who think of love primarily as a feeling. He says love is a walk — a daily, deliberate way of moving through life. And that walk is following God's commands. But then he turns it around: God's command is itself love. The two ideas aren't competing. Love and obedience are the same road, just described from different angles.

Father, forgive me for reducing love to a feeling I wait for rather than a walk I choose. Teach me what it means to love with my whole life — in small decisions, honest conversations, and patient presence. Help me walk in love today, even when it costs me something. Amen.

We've almost completely divorced love from action. In our culture, love is a feeling, an emotion, a vibe — something that happens to you, or stops happening to you. But John has the nerve to say: love is a walk. It's what you do with your feet, day after day, whether the feeling shows up or not. This isn't cold, joyless duty-keeping. John isn't handing you a checklist and wishing you luck. He's saying that the shape of love — what it actually looks like when it lands in real life — is the way of God. And those ways, from beginning to end, are themselves love. So here's the question worth sitting with: when the feeling fades, when the relationship costs you something, when obedience is inconvenient — do you still walk? Love that only exists when it's easy isn't love. It's preference.