Listen

We have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the savior of the world. If any of us confess that Jesus is God’s Son, God remains in us and we remain in God. We have known and have believed the love that God has for us.

God is love, and those who remain in love remain in God and God remains in them. This is how love has been perfected in us, so that we can have confidence on the Judgment Day, because we are exactly the same as God is in this world.

1 John 4:14-17

Think

I love that last line: “so that we can have confidence!”

I wonder what the world would look like without confident people?

Confidence implies that we are bold and courageous. Think of the “bold” people that have brought us into today: There are the names we study in school, like Martin Luther King, Jr., who boldly fought for Civil Rights in the 1960s. There’s Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist who boldly advocated for girls’ rights to education, which won her the Nobel Prize.

But there are people whose names we’ll never see in history books or on news headlines who are making equally confident moves to show God’s love. Some of the boldest people I’ve known haven’t worried about if their names appear on the Grammy’s or on the front of a 1st place trophy or even in a history book.

Remain – live! – in the love of God each day, remembering you are a beloved child of God. By remaining in God’s love we find our courage, boldness, and our confidence to share this love with others!

Molly Shoulta Tucker

Pray

Loving God, who loves me boldly, abide in my heart and increase my confidence to boldly share your love with others. Amen.

Go

O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure —
The saints' and angels' song!

from “The Love of God” by Frederick Martin Lehman (1917)