Daily Thoughts from 1 John: Falling on a Grenade (3:16-18)

Daily Thoughts from 1 John: Falling on a Grenade

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.  (1 John 3:16-18 ESV)

The ultimate test of love is sacrifice.  Love is willing to do anything necessary within God’s bounds to bring someone God’s best.  Jesus is the ultimate example of such sacrifice.  We needed God’s best, God’s love, but we were in rebellion and our guilt before God needed to be removed or we would never experience His love.  So Jesus sacrificed his life in our place to pay our debt.

John says we should do the same, sacrifice, for one another.  The soldier who falls on a grenade to save his fellow combatants is doing this in the ultimate sense.  But there are many levels of sacrifice we can make for the good of others.  One example John gives is seeing our brothers in physical need and sacrificing our own worldly goods to feed or clothe or shelter them.  This is loving in deed and truth, not just words.

John knows that our biggest temptation is to play the game of love verbally without delivering in reality.  God’s love is only demonstrated in us when it works its way out into action.

Let us, to this end [that is, love], be willing to do, or give, or suffer, that we may do good alike to friends and enemies, to the evil and the good, to the thankful and the unthankful.
Let our benevolence and beneficence be universal, constant, free, habitual, and according to our opportunities and ability, for this is essential to true piety, and required by the commands of God.

Jonathan Edwards (from Charity and Its Fruits: Or, Christian Love as Manifested in the Heart and Life)