Summary
Love as a Blessing
To bless another person begins, simply, with love. Among the many ways Christians are called to be a blessing to others—echoing God's promise to Abraham that "I will bless you... so that you will be a blessing" Genesis 12:2—love stands first. The First Letter of John, chapter four, sets the foundation by tracing love back to its source and forward to its expression in our daily lives.
God is love. Scripture gives several windows into the very nature of God. He is light, in whom there is no darkness at all 1 John 1:5. He is spirit, worshiped in spirit and truth John 4:24. He is a consuming fire Hebrews 12:29. And He is love 1 John 4:8. Love is not merely something God does; it belongs to His inmost being.
God has loved. That love became visible in the incarnation: "God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him" 1 John 4:9. The supreme manifestation, however, is the cross. "In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins" 1 John 4:10. The word atonement carries the sense of "at-one-ment"—reconciliation. God's holy light exposes our sin, but instead of the consuming fire consuming us, that fire fell upon the Son on the cross. Christ paid the sin-debt we could never pay and gave us His righteousness in exchange. This was no response to our love for God; it was His sovereign, self-sacrificing decision to love us.
God continues to love—through us. "Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another... if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us" 1 John 4:11–12. To be "perfected" here means to find its goal, its purpose. When God's love flows through a believer toward a neighbor, that love is reaching its intended end. As one child put it: if God is huge and lives in my heart, wouldn't He show through?
This is possible only because God has first changed the heart. By nature the will is bound, turned away from God; faith is wholly His gift, granted through Word and Sacrament. Once converted, the will begins to cooperate with God—not perfectly this side of heaven, since the old Adam still clings, but truly. The believer now desires what God desires, and by His grace says yes to love. As Paul writes, "It is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" Philippians 2:13.
Biblical love, importantly, is rooted in action, not feeling. The Greek mind tied love primarily to emotion; Scripture ties it to deeds. This means a Christian may not always like a particular person yet can still genuinely love them—and often, as concrete acts of love are extended, the feelings themselves begin to change. The plan begins with confession of how we have fallen short, receiving the Lord's word of forgiveness, and then asking: who in my life this week needs to be loved in a tangible way? Be the person from whom others walk away knowing—even if they cannot name it—that something good has just happened. That is what it means to bless by loving.
Video citations
- "Love" — Let's open up our Bibles, please. Today, to first John the fourth chapter for our study, first John chapter four. Count your blessings. Count your blessings. Have you ever heard that phrase or have…