Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him? My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:16–18
President Harry Truman has often been called an “accidental president.” When Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented fourth term, Truman replaced Henry Wallace as vice president, largely remaining in the background of the administration. In fact, when President Roosevelt died just eighty-two days after Truman took office, the new president was so out of the loop that he had not even been informed of the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb. Truman was known as a blunt, plainspoken man, lacking the eloquence and emotional polish many politicians cultivate. Yet after his death, the Truman Presidential Library revealed another side of the man in an exhibit of more than 1,300 letters he had written to his wife, Bess. During every day they were apart, Truman wrote to tell her how deeply he loved her and how much he missed her.
Our world often treats love as a feeling, but the kind of love God wants us to have both for Himself and for others is an active love. Real love does not stay internal. It always manifests itself in action. God Himself set the pattern for this kind of love by sending Jesus to be our Savior. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
In that gift, God showed that love is proven by what it is willing to give up. The cross stands as the ultimate demonstration that genuine love acts, costs, and sacrifices. God’s love was not merely declared; it was displayed. In the same way, the love we are called to live out is shown not simply by what we feel or say, but by what we are willing to give for the sake of others.
