Verse: 1 John 5:1-2
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. 2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.
Devotion
Unless you are my age, you probably don't remember the song "More Than Words" by Extreme? It was released in 1990, and somehow when I started working on this devotion that song popped into my head. Now, Extreme had a VERY different message than John in this verse. It seems whoever wrote the song was trying to convince his girlfriend to stop saying "I love you" and prove her love by, well, you know.
John's point is...similar? Obviously we are only looking at two verses, and they are building to a larger picture in the following paragraph, but even in these two verses we can see a main point: belief in Jesus should result in action. We need "more than words" in our faith.
Belief in Jesus is the start, not the end. The fruit of believing that Jesus is the Christ should be a life of loving God. And then the fruit of loving God, should result in two more things in our lives: obedience to God's commands, and loving others.
The devotional point for me this morning personally is continue to ask the Lord to turn my faith into life change. I don't want my faith to just be a personal belief, or even something that just personally helps me and strengthens me. My belief in Jesus should overflow into how I love and treat others, and how I live my life (in obedience to his commands). And his commands aren't there to crush me, they are there to lead me to the most full and meaningful life. I want my faith to grow and mature so I that I naturally am loving others, even those I find hard to love. And that I'm naturally serving others, even when it's inconvenient. And that my heart to drawn to prayer, even when I feel I'm too busy. And so on.
I pray that God would continue to shape me, change me, and mold me. I have much to learn, and still so much growth in faith ahead of me. Good for us, our God is patient, loving and kind.