Love And Peanut Butter

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.

1 John 3:1

The word love is used to mean many different things. We say that we “love” the house that we have just bought or that we “love” a particular vacation spot or that we “love” a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. We also “love” a certain television program, and we “love” our husband or wife. It is to be hoped that we don’t love our spouse the same way we love a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!

A friend once observed, “Love talked about is easily ignored, but love demonstrated is irresistible.” God demonstrated His love toward us “in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Now, that is real love.

If God had only talked about how much He loved us and never proved it by sending Christ to meet our greatest need—the forgiveness of sin and the healing of the breach between God and man when sin entered the world—He would have been a very cruel God. But He did more than talk. He demonstrated His love for us by sending the most precious offering He could make: His sinless Son, who became sin on our behalf that we might be delivered from sin and have a home in heaven.

God’s love is eternal. It outlasts everything we have ever loved, including a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! It is in experiencing God’s love for us that we are able to love others, including those who might be unlovable to us.

Our Father and our God, I am overwhelmed by the incredible love You have shown to me through Jesus. I am humbled by Your great mercy. Help me, Lord, to show selfless love to others—my family, my friends, the church, and even my enemies. I love You, Father, more than life because of Christ. Amen.

Billy Graham, Unto the Hills: A Daily Devotional (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2010).