Life and Love, Day 18 Love and fear can’t coexist. Read 1 John 4:11-18. As we learn more about love, we understand that God is love. We learned that yesterday. When we understand God is love, then we must understand that fear and love cannot coexist together. The perfect love of God casts out fear. God is not afraid of anything. He knows exactly what’s going to happen. There is no fear in who he is or what he does. If we are filled with the love of God then we will not have fear. God is in control, and we can trust him. We don’t need to have any…

Life and Love, Day 17 God is love. Read 1 John 4:7-10. When it comes to love, we cannot have a conversation about it without also talking about God. God is the very definition of love. There is no real love apart from God. When we talk about love whether it is feeling love, or expressing love, if that feeling or expression is not completely aligned to God’s nature and who he is, then it cannot be real love. If people do not understand the character and nature of who God is, then they do not understand what love is. God is love in its truest form. It’s important to…

Life and Love, Day 16 God is greater. Read 1 John 4:1-6. As we read these 6 verses, we see a lot written about the spirit of the world. Interestingly, today in the United States we celebrate the holiday of Halloween. Often, this holiday becomes all about spirits and disguises and trick-or-treating and candy. While many people enjoy this holiday and have a lot of fun with it, it’s personally never been one of my favorite holidays. I think part of that comes from this idea about spirits. As believers in Christ, we know and understand that just as Christ and God and the angels are in the heavenly realm,…

Life and Love, Day 15 Facts, not feelings. Read 1 John 3:19-24. Yesterday, we learned that love cannot be about intentions, but is about actions. Today, we see the truth that love cannot be about feelings but is about facts. In this verse, we understand that sometimes what we tell ourselves isn’t true. Our heart can deceive us, and our feelings can lie to us. However, God is greater than our heart and God knows everything, so God is able to help us discern the truth of the situation even when our feelings don’t align. God loves us even when we can’t love ourselves. God has high standards and expectations…

Life and Love, Day 14 Love must be lived out. Read 1 John 3:16-18. John goes through several descriptions of what it actually means to love.You see, we can talk about love and we can explain about love, but if we aren’t actually demonstrating love then, what’s the point? John knew that there were people going through difficult times, and he wanted the church to realize part of being like Christ and demonstrating love was taking care of those people. Are we living out the love of Christ and demonstrating that by sharing with others. Love cannot just be something you say. Love must be something we do. As we…

Life and Love, Day 13 Expectations. Read 1 John 3:11-15. Managing expectations can be one of the most challenging areas in life. This can include everything from managing the expectations of other people toward us, to also managing our own expectations. We need to be realistic about what we see and what we are going to experience in life. If we are a follower of Christ, we need to understand that success looks different for us than what it does for the rest of the world. Success is about following Christ and being obedient to him. Success is not about money or position. If we are not staying focused on…

Life and Love, Day 12 Be righteous. Read 1 John 3:7-10. What does it mean to be righteous? John answers this and says that the one who does what is right is righteous. God desires that we do what is righteous. We are to be righteous as God himself is righteous. These verses are laid out very simply. John wants people to understand the gospel is not complicated. But because it’s not so complicated, there’s not any wiggle room. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong. People who are doing what is right are followers of Christ. People who are doing what is wrong are not.…

Life and Love, Day 11 Be like Christ. Read 1 John 3:1-6. As we read these first few verses of chapter 3, we see just how much God loves us. John wants to make sure we understand that the father has lavished his love on us. We are his children and he is going to make us like him. He wants us to be the perfect creation he originally designed when he created humanity back in the garden of Eden. God has lavished his love on us. John also wants us to understand that we may not truly know what it means to be in the image of God. We…

Life and Love, Day 10 Confident. Read 1 John 2:28-29. There will come a point when we will stand before God and give an account of our life. John knew this and wants to make sure that we have made choices in our life now that will result in our standing before the Lord with confidence. We know that we have no right to stand at all before God except for Christ. But in our relationship with Christ, have we been following him in obedience and showing him that we love him through what we do? Follow Christ and be confident in his love of us. And our love of…

Life and Love, Day 9 Spot the fake. Read 1 John 2:18-27. Now that John has explained the importance of loving the things of God and not loving the things of the world, we are responsible for spotting the fakes. The early church that John was writing to was experiencing people who were claiming to be of Christ, but then teaching things that were not even close to in line with the gospel message. John reminds the people that part of demonstrating the love of Christ is understanding when people are not of the love of Christ. We have to be able to identify those who are teaching things that…