“Love must always have an object other than ourselves.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – September 24, 2026
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:16-17, NIV
I’m not quite sure where it came from, but somewhere along the way I picked up the idea that God the Father was the bad guy and Jesus was the good guy. The Father was angry and distant, disappointed in me in countless ways, regretting that he’d made me in the first place. Jesus, however, was the one who had my back and was looking out for me. If I stuck close to him, perhaps I could slip in the side door of heaven, hiding in his shadow and hoping that the Father wouldn’t notice.
John 3 presents us with one of the most famous passages in the Bible and one of the most definitive rejections of this division between the Father and the Son. The Son did not act of his own accord, seeking to save over and against the will or desire of the Father. No, the mission of love toward creation begins with the self-giving love of the Father who gives and sends his Son, not to condemn, but to save us by revealing the true nature of love itself.
How do we know if love is true? How do we know our love is the kind of love we read about in John 3? How do we know if love is actually love?
Our culture is obsessed with love, yet so often it is nothing more than infatuation, lust, or the longing to be wanted and desired by someone else. If the love we embrace simply reinforces the inward curve of our distorted desires, it is not love. Love must always have an object other than ourselves. Love requires an outward orientation. As Thomas Aquinas said, “to love is to will the good of another.” Or, as we see in today’s passage, “God so loved the world that he gave…”
More than a theology of atonement or legal requirement, the cross of Jesus Christ is the most powerful symbol of love the world has ever seen because it is the purest expression of selfless love that the world has ever known. And when we say yes to walking in the way of the cross, this is what we are saying yes to!
We are invited daily to learn to give ourselves away for the good of others. In a counterintuitive way, if we spend our days longing to be loved, we will be a shell of who we are meant to be, disappointed and restless. Yet if we seek to love as Christ loved us, our love will grow as we give our lives away in love for one another. This is the way of the cross and the way that leads to life.
Prayer
Father, teach us to love as we have been loved, giving our lives away in radical and sacrificial ways, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Application
How can you give the gift of love to someone today?
Related Reading
John 15:13; Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:9-10
Worship Resource
Celtic Worship: How Deep The Father’s Love
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