Day Two
Love as Our Identity Marker
John 13:34-35; 1 John 4:7-12
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.
Devotional
Jesus gave His disciples a revolutionary badge of identification: sacrificial love for one another. Not theology, programs, or political alignment, but love would mark them as His followers. This love isn't based on mutual attraction or conditional agreement—it's patterned after Christ's love: sacrificial, forgiving, faithful, and unconditional. When we love this way, we make the invisible God visible to a watching world. Our divided culture desperately needs to see something different than the hatred and tribalism that dominates headlines.
Reflection:
Today, ask yourself: Would people recognize me as Jesus' disciple by how I love? Who in my life—especially someone difficult or different from me—needs to experience Christlike love through my words and actions this week?
Jesus gave His disciples a revolutionary badge of identification: sacrificial love for one another. Not theology, programs, or political alignment, but love would mark them as His followers. This love isn't based on mutual attraction or conditional agreement—it's patterned after Christ's love: sacrificial, forgiving, faithful, and unconditional. When we love this way, we make the invisible God visible to a watching world. Our divided culture desperately needs to see something different than the hatred and tribalism that dominates headlines.
Reflection:
Today, ask yourself: Would people recognize me as Jesus' disciple by how I love? Who in my life—especially someone difficult or different from me—needs to experience Christlike love through my words and actions this week?
Posted in Advent 2025: Love
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