Devotionals

Love with a Pure Heart

by Gail Davis
09/01/20
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“Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart.” (1 Peter 1:22 [NASB])

Peter, when he wrote his letter to the Christians of Asia Minor, which is Turkey today, did not, with the beginning clause, say they could love fervently in their own strength. He understood the sin nature of each person. Peter knew no person was holy, but all are sinners. This means each person could love no other person with the fervency and purity of God without being changed by faith in Jesus Christ. A person loves oneself more than other people. Still, Peter did not say it was impossible to love with a pure heart. Instead, Peter reminded these Christians how they could understand they could love fervently from their hearts.

Peter, in this chapter, appears to give many commands on how to be a Christian and assurances to realize one is a Christian. Yet, if we carefully read the complex sentences of this chapter, we will understand how we can know we have a pure heart with which to love other believers. Going backwards up the verses in the chapter, Peter said believers have their hope, conduct, and faith in God.

How can people realize their hope is in God? From verses twenty to twenty-one, Peter listed ways a person can recognize this in themselves. He said if a person believes in Jesus Christ as the Savior sent from God as planned from the foundation of the world, and that God raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, then you can know your faith and hope are in God. Because this believing person is in a faith relationship with God because of Jesus, the person is being made more into the likeness of Jesus and has the love of God living in him or her.

Notice, within verses seventeen through nineteen, Peter wrote about a second attribute of Christians. Peter said believers conduct themselves in reverent fear of God while on earth because Jesus purified them with something more precious than gold or silver. Christians act and think right because of the reverent fear/awe they have for God, because He is righteous and judges fairly. Jesus purified them with His own blood by dying for their sins. His great love gave the greatest sacrifice. Christian lives should copy Jesus’ love. They can show His love through the power of the indwelling Spirit of Christ. A Christian conducts his or her life in a way that reflects Jesus, His love and sacrifice for God and other believers.

Peter said people can be holy because Jesus, their Savior, is holy (vs. 16). Verses thirteen through sixteen remind the Christians in Asia Minor of the holiness, purification, Jesus gives each person who believes in Him. Believers can, with the Spirit’s help, prepare their minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix their hope completely on the grace Jesus gave to them at His revelation, and conform themselves into the image of Christ. By Jesus, they will be holy in their behavior. Holy behavior is living as Christ lived, in love and service to people. People who live like Jesus, act upon the faith God gave them to believe in Jesus Christ for their salvation and have His Spirit in them to transform them into His image and exuding His attributes. Holy living expresses itself in pure and fervent love.

Peter explained this hope, reverent conduct, and holiness given by belief in Jesus Christ enable believers to love each other. These attitudes and actions come from Jesus’ attributes. Since these Christians to whom Peter wrote obeyed the truth and had their souls purified by faith in Jesus, they had available within them the capacity to love brethren sincerely. Pure (holy) and fervent love from their heart occurred because they were born again through Jesus. John reiterated this in 1 John 4:7-14 when he wrote Jesus enables believers to love each other because love comes from God.

John, in 1 John 4:9-10, leads us to understand more about God’s love. He said because of God’s love, He sent His Son into the world “that we might live through Him.” God loves people before they love Him. He showed it by sending His love to all people through Christ. Jesus’ love is not just for believers. His love is for all people. Jesus died for all people. John stated this in John 3:16 when he said, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” [NASB] Jesus loves all people. As His disciples, Christians have this same attribute of love from Jesus. Believers are to love all people. Just as Jesus’ love is pure and fervent, the love each Christian has from God to love other people is pure and fervent.

As children of God, Christians are to love fervently, passionately, and purely. They can do this because their faith in Jesus purified them, made them holy (1 Peter 1:13-16). Just as He is holy, He makes believers holy. Christians live in reverent awe of God, the one who redeemed them with His Son’s own blood as the sacrifice for their sins. Because of this great love of Jesus, they can love others with the love that flows from Him to them through His indwelling Holy Spirit. Christians can love all people because of their hope in God. Because they know God loves them, which they will see when Jesus returns to take them to His kingdom, they can show this unending love they received from Christ to all people. Peter explained each of these three points in 1 Peter 1:22-23.

“Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:22-23 [NASB])

 Jesus came to the world to save all who would believe in Him. John 3:16 explains that. Jesus’ standard of love is the standard for each person who lives. This love is sincere and fervent and based on holiness, faith, and hope. It comes from the source of love, God. Love is one of God’s attributes. What should the extent of our love be? Jesus’ life and death modeled the answer to that question. He taught His disciples about it. Jesus said in John 15:12-13, “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” [NASB] Should anyone read John 15:13 to mean Jesus said to love Christians only, Matthew 22:37-39 records Jesus’ deeper understanding of love. He said in these verses, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus loved and still loves fervently. Nothing can separate people from His love. Jesus loves purely. He is holy and no evil taints His love. Jesus loves completely, to the giving of His life so others can live. He gives each Christian, through His Spirit who dwells in him or her, His superabundant love so they can live out His love by loving each person they meet. Jesus does not restrict His love to certain people because of their skin color, politics, accent, physical attributes, income, health, education, or any human-defining category. God makes each person in His image. Jesus came to love and redeem all of us.

Jesus’ love is fervent, holy, and unending.

Our love for all people should be the same. 

Jesus makes it possible for people to love as He loves by their becoming His disciples. Will you accept the redemption for your sins He offers to you? Today is your time to think about how you live life. Do you love all people equally without prejudice and stereotypes? Jesus does. He died for every person who has lived to give unending love and salvation to them. Jesus loves you and died for you. What will you say to Him today?