week 42:October 12-18, 2025 -Love God and Love Others

This week’s daily readings:

October 12-18, 2025

This week’s devotional:

Love God and Love Others

by Rt. Rev. Brian Bethke

Scripture: 

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. 

— 1 John 4:7-12 (NIV)

Reflection: 

The day had come! I was finally going to do it! I was going to confess my love to Shelly Robins. I was 10 years old and Shelly was a girl in my 5th grade class at Samuel Gompers Elementary School that I had a crush on; the first girl, in fact. I was absolutely sure the feeling was mutual. On many occasions, Shelly had smiled at me and complemented me on my tetherball skills and monkey bar acumen. We just needed to “get it out there.” If she was not going to do it, I was going to, for both our sakes. 

The problem was how to do it. I just needed the right situation, the right time. She lived about one mile from my grandmother’s house. I thought about writing a letter but was concerned that it would get lost. I thought about calling her on my grandmother’s old rotary phone but knew that I would have no privacy since the phone cord only went so far and the walls were thin. I thought about the direct approach: just saying something to her, face-to-face, but I was afraid it would get too awkward, and I would “chicken out.” As I racked my 10-year-old brain, it came to me... Valentines Day! Valentines Day was a week away and our class was going to have our annual valentines’ exchange. That was the day I would confess my love; actually, that was the day we both would confess our love for each other.

The day arrived. I had my Peanuts-themed valentine embedded with chalky heart-shaped candy with strategic messages on each tiny heart that complemented my personalized message to Shelly. I walked up to her desk and placed it in her hand. She opened it. She read it. She then placed it in her handmade basket and said nothing. I thought perhaps she was so overwhelmed with emotion that she was in shock. I thought that maybe the valentine that she had yet to give to me would explain. I waited… and waited… and waited… but her valentine never came. 

Love is something every human being searches for and desires. This makes sense! The Triune God is love, and out of the abundance of love between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we were created to love and be loved. God’s “valentine”—his proof that he loves us—is seen in the perfect Christ: divine love in the flesh. We can only love when we understand how loved we are in Christ. We are loved, not for how well we perform or produce. We are loved because God decided to love us in Christ before the foundation of the world. We experience this love when we receive it and then extend that love to others by the power of the Holy Spirt. Our love is made complete only when we love one another in Christ. 

The fact is, we have expectations of love that can never be fulfilled by the people in our lives. The only one that can fulfill that desire and meet our expectations is The One True God. We are loved so much and are called by the power of the Holy Spirit to love the unlovable from the abundance of undeserved love we have received in Christ. Who is God calling you to love right now? 

Prayer:

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your amazing love for us! Knowing we don’t deserve it makes it that much more precious. Holy Spirit, help us to live up to this incredible gift by being just as generous with our love toward other people, never expecting anything in return. Thank you, Jesus, for your willing sacrifice on our behalf. Save us, heal us, and make us complete in your love. Father, bring us ever closer to you, showing us just who you truly are. We love you, Lord! In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen