Devotions

… for the week of June 1, 2025

To Know God

After her very first day of Sunday school, a little girl went up to her father, looked him directly in the eyes, and said, “I love you, Daddy, because God loved me first.” She then declared boldly, “First Jesus, four nineteen!” It took only a few seconds for her father to realize that her Sunday school lesson for the day was based on 1 John 4:19, which says, “We love because he first loved us.” Amazing, that already on her first day of Sunday school this child of God had learned that love comes first from Jesus and then is to be shared.

Once we understand the principle that we love because God loves us first, it is not difficult to reach other related conclusions. We forgive because God has already forgiven us. We bless because God has already blessed us. We walk with others because God walks with us. These are bold statements of union with God.

Jesus, in today’s gospel reading, is not afraid to say that he and God are one. And more than this, God’s intent is that each of us is to be one with God as well. To know God is to know love. To know God is to know forgiveness. To know God is to know blessing.

What happens when we approach the altar on Sunday and receive the sacrament? When we receive the bread and wine, we take in Jesus. In taking in Jesus, we become everything that Jesus is. This is truly, albeit mysteriously, an embodied reality of union with God. What a gift!

It has always been God’s desire to be reconciled with us—for us to be in a relationship of peace and wholeness through Jesus and to live the life of the Spirit by clearly sharing with others everything we have come to know about the One who created us. In sharing love with others, we then live a life that says “thank you” to God.