What Love

1 John 3:1-10

“See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are” (1 John 3:1). What a great message to receive! God loves us enough to claim us, not just as a part of creation or even as servants, but God loves us with the love a caring parent has for a child. And that is what we are, children of God. What we receive from our Creator is divine involvement in our lives, sustenance for the journey, light for the darkness, hope for the crisis, encouragement for the challenge, shelter from the storm, and so much more.

Our world has a great many definitions for love. Too often it has come to be associated with lust or desire, overshadowed by the need to control one another, seen as a sort of narcotic. But the love that God has for us is a self-giving love, one that seeks what is best for us and what is best from us. Imagine Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 13 set alongside those from 1 John. We are God’s children and so we experience God’s love as patient and kind, not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. We discover that God’s love bears all things. We are assured that God’s love never ends.

No, we are not specs of cosmic dust or grains of sand on some universal beach. Not in God’s eyes. We are loved, and that is the greatest news of all.

Prayer: Lord God, we cannot fully understand your love for us, but help us to embrace it and to share it with others that all may know you as a gracious parent. In Jesus’ name. Amen.