Memorizing and Meditating on Scripture is one of the most important spiritual discipline's God has made available to us. We want you so filled immersed in Scripture that when life cuts you, what you bleed is the Word of God. Check out this devotional to help you toward this goal.

“How do we know what love is?”

This question can have many answers, but for Christians, this week’s memory verse gives us the best one:

And this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  I John 3:16  

What we have here is a visual of the entire concept of love. Picture the phrase “laying down” as in laying down a weapon. What does laying down a weapon signify? For most, it would signify surrender. Laying down a weapon says, “I’m not going to fight with you over this. I will bow to your will.”

Jesus was fully human with all of the fears, emotions and fight of a human being, and since we are also human, we can assume that He didn’t want to go through all the suffering and pain He knew was coming.  But did He keep fighting for his own right to live?  No - He surrendered to the will of the Father. He did this because of love - love for the Father and love for us.

I John 3:16 also tells us that “we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers”.

But why? Why should we surrender to the Father just because Jesus did?

Well of course, the answer is the same. For love!

There’s a commercial on TV depicting a little girl getting ready to go in to work with her mom. Her mom gets out of bed, she gets out of bed. Her mom brushes her teeth then puts on something pink, and so does she. When they get to the office, the little girl copies every little move mom makes. Why? Because the little girl loves her mommy and wants to be just like her.  If we love Jesus it’s only natural for us to want to be like Him, to do the things that He does, to love the way He loves.

Our prayer is that everyone at FFC will want imitate Jesus. Memorizing this verse can help. It’s an easy one:

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”  I John 3:16