The Real Thing (Friday Devotional)

 

Little children, let us love not in word or speech but in deed and truth.

- 1 John 3:18

When rapper Young Jeezy was preparing to take photos for the cover of an upcoming album, his creative vision was simple: he wanted shots of himself surrounded by $2 million in cash. However, he was perturbed when the prop guys started laying out the money, noticing that they were fake bills. He demanded they replace the counterfeit money with the real thing.

The prop guys understandably told him they didn’t have access to that kind of money, certainly not at a moment’s notice. Without missing a beat, Young Jeezy made a phone call and, within the hour, two unnamed men pulled up to the studio with $1.8 million in cash. After one more phone call, a friend showed up with the remaining $200,000. The fake bills were set aside and the photoshoot could begin now that they had the real thing.

When you opened this devotional, you probably didn’t expect to get a spiritual lesson from the world of hip hop. But Young Jeezy’s attitude at that photoshoot reflects a mindset that extends to all areas of life: we want authenticity. Given the choice between the counterfeit and the genuine, people will always choose the real thing. In fact, we won’t settle for less.

In Scripture, we are repeatedly called to love our neighbors. From the books of the Law to the parables of Jesus to the teachings of the epistles, that message is consistent and persistent. If there’s one thing people know about believers, it’s that God wants us to love like he does.

And 1 John 3:18 reminds us that love is not just something we preach theoretically, but something we practice authentically. It’s one thing for people to hear about God’s love, but another thing altogether for them to see it lived out, to bear witness to the transformative power of the gospel.

The world knows what hypocrisy and inauthenticity look like; they see it every day. They know the difference between counterfeit love—salesmanship disguised as kindness—and the real thing. So may God’s people love like Jesus—not just in word and speech, but in deed and truth.