06/15/2026
“Above all, love deeply…” (1 Peter 4:8)
This is a keystone verse that speaks the Good News of Jesus to any who will listen. It is also the first part of a verse that has been used to justify evil and corrupted thinking for generations. It’s true that loving deeply “covers over a multitude of sins”… BUT it doesn’t excuse, justify, or empower the ongoing abuse or neglect of people, “loved ones” or “enemies” alike. Instead it empowers us to understand that forgiveness and grace (the desire and ability God gives for whole-life change that grounded in reality) are powerful to deal with sin. Sin is wrong doing, but love also confronts wrong believing, and thinking by shifting the paradigm of our worldview from self-centered pride and arrogance that makes others less than to elevating them to highly valued and favored created beings who deserve my curiosity, compassion and understanding to love them regardless of what I think about the way they live their lives. So yes, love deeply, because true love is about living with others, it’s about sacrificing for others, it’s about considering them as valuable and even more important than I am. It’s about caring for them (strangers too) and meeting their intrinsic God-given needs in legitimate ways by utilizing the very gifts God has so generously provided for His children. It’s about speaking words that cultivate life to them. Words that are cleansing, freeing, healing and restoring so that they become the best version of who they have always been according to God’s creative order—the very thing Jesus already does in everyday moments of every day. It’s about removing obstacles to His love, goodness and beauty so that all people everywhere, in all things, might praise Him and recognize His glory! This is what it means to “love deeply”.