Pastoral Devotion for November – God Is Love

Read 1 John 4:7-21

The tired old man was perched on the steps leading into the church. He sat there every day. He had no other place he needed to be. He had no place to go; no particular circumstance required his presence. He was homeless, jobless and for the most part, invisible. No one noticed him, except for the pastor who supplied breakfast and the newspaper a few times per week. The two were friends; brothers you could say. In the beginning, we would sit rather quietly, so obviously different, yet so much the same, but soon we became bound together in great friendship.

In the text before us, John has but one message; Jesus Christ came as the manifestation of God’s love. “For God so loved the world,” John would write in his gospel, “that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). God’s love is realized through Christ, so that humanity may be saved through him. God’s love is perfect, undeserved, and everlasting. It is the love shared by his people. Those who abide in his love, abide in him, and he in them. Such a friendship in Christ lasts forever.

As I sat with my friend there on the church steps each morning, we both recognized the love that united us; we spoke of it often. As we shared the news of the day, we+ shared something even more fulfilling – our friendship that had its roots deeply planted in the love of God through Jesus Christ.

Prayer: Holy God, fill us with your love, that together, we may abide in you and you in us. Amen.