We love because he first loved us. I John 4:19
“I’m the funny one.” “I’m a businessperson,” “I’m the eldest child,” or “I’m a victim.” If you had to come up with a label to identify yourself by, what would it be?
Where does your personal identity in life come from? The writer of the Bible book of John was so clear about his identity that he mentioned it five times in the book he wrote that bears his name. He didn’t say, “I’m a disciple, an evangelist or an author.” John said, “I am the disciple Jesus loved” (John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7,20). The most important thing about John, he tells us, wasn’t his name or his position in group of Jesus’s followers, it was that Jesus loved him.
Ian Simkins asks, “What would it mean to come to the place where you saw your primary identity in life, not as what you did or achieved, not the titles you hold or the tasks you accomplish, but as “the one Jesus loves?” Conversely, “What would it look like to see our primary identity, not as our greatest failure or shortcoming, the things we did, failed to do, or have been done to us, but as “the one who Jesus loved?”[1]
Of course, John wasn’t the only loved disciple, but John clearly grasped his perfectly loved condition. There was enough of Jesus’s love for all of the disciples… and all of the world. There’s even enough for you and for me. “We love because he first loved us,” (I John 4:19) the Bible says. Seeing ourselves as immersed in Jesus’s unconditional love gives us the ability to love others like Jesus does.
You are a loved one of Jesus. You can say, “I am the one Jesus loves.”
[1] Simkins, Ian. [@iansimpkins]. “July 2.” Instagram, July 2, 2024, https://www.instagram.com/p/C864jqFRYsr/?igsh=MWQ1ZGUxMzBkMA%3D%3D.
