1 John 3:18–Loving inDeed

1 John 3:18–"Little children, let us love not in word or talk but in deed and in truth."

"How do you know that I love you?"

I asked this question to my 9-month-old puppy recently.  She stared at me with her big eyes and said nothing.

Of course I replied, "Well, I do love you."

Again nothing, no response.  My puppy simply went back to chewing her rope toy.

It occurred to me, as I am sure it occurs to every dog owner that, despite my best efforts and notwithstanding the few trained responses, my dog does not and cannot speak english.  Because of this, no matter how well I articulate my affections for my pooch, unless I show her that I love her she would never truly know.  But I do show the puppy that I love her: I feed her, pet her, play with her, give her treats, and do all those other loving things that a dog owner should do.

Love, in a sense, is like this.  We can talk and talk and talk about how much we love another person, how desperately we tell them that we care for them, or how eloquently we express our affections, unless we show our love through action, the truth of our fondness could never be seen from the other. It is as we do that we love.

But this is not enough for we also must love truthfully.  That is to say that not every action that we could do for love actually is loving.  For instance, it would not be loving to beat my puppy without any reason and call it 'firm discipline.'  In this way, it needs to be said that we have to show our love in actions that are actually loving.

Needless to say, there is more to say about this but suffice for now to conclude with a simple statement. Our example in this is Christ Jesus who, because of His great love for us, was obedient unto death so as to show the true depth of His love for us.  Let us then always look to Him for our hope, our strength, and our wisdom as we strive to love in deed and in truth.