09/02/2026
September 2, 2026: Love That Costs Something
Devotional
It is easy to say you love someone. Words are free. But love that actually costs you something, that is a different story entirely.
God did not just say He loved you. He proved it. He proved it through sacrifice. Jesus did not die for people who had it all together. He died for the broken, the struggling, the ones who had wandered far from where they should have been. He absorbed the punishment that belonged to us, and He did it willingly.
First John 4 puts it plainly. God showed His love not through a feeling or a statement, but through action. He sent His Son. That is the standard of love that God set, and it is the same standard He calls us to reflect toward others.
Here is where it gets personal. The people in your life who are hardest to love, the ones who have not earned your kindness, the ones who have let you down, those are the people God is calling you to extend grace toward. Not because they deserve it, but because you did not deserve it either, and God loved you anyway.
When you show undeserved kindness, you look most like Jesus. That is not a small thing. That is the gospel on display.
Bible Verse
"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." - 1 John 4:9-10
Reflection Question
Is there someone in your life right now who needs grace they have not earned, and what would it look like for you to offer it?
Quote
Love isn't measured by your words. Love is measured by sacrifice.
Prayer
Father, thank You for loving me through sacrifice. Give me the courage and the heart to extend that same undeserved grace to the people around me. Amen.