What Does Love Look Like
This week's devotions grow out of our sermon series What Does Love Look Like?, derived from Baptist Mission Australia's May Mission Month 2026 material. Week 1 explores what it means to live as imitators of Jesus — putting others first, serving joyfully, and loving actively and sacrificially in ways that point to the Father. The key verse for the series is 1 John 4:19: "We love because he first loved us."
Love Looks Like This
Bible Reading
"We love because he first loved us."
1 John 4:19 (NRSVue)Reflection
Every great act of love starts somewhere. It doesn't spring up from thin air or sheer human willpower. According to John, love — real, lasting, Christ-shaped love — is always a response. Before we ever reached toward God, God had already reached toward us. Before we knew how to love our neighbours, God had already loved them enough to send his Son.
This month at IBC we're asking a simple but searching question: What does love look like? The answer runs deeper than we might expect. Love looks like imitating Jesus — going to uncomfortable places, seeking out the overlooked, serving without needing to be the greatest. But before we can imitate, we need to receive. You can't give what you haven't been given. Begin today by sitting with this verse. God first loved you — not the polished version of you, but you as you are right now. That love is the well from which everything else flows.
Questions for Prayer and Reflection
- Where in your life right now do you most need to receive God's love before you can give it away?
- What would it look like today to love someone as a response to being loved by God first?
Prayer
Lord, before I try to love anyone today,
remind me first that I am loved by you.
Let that truth go deep.
Then send me out from that place of security
to love others as you have loved me.
Amen.
Practice
Pause for two minutes before you begin your day. Simply sit with the phrase: "He first loved me." Let it be your anchor before the day pulls you in all directions.
Memory Verse
God Is Love
Bible Reading
"And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them."
1 John 4:16 (NRSVue)Reflection
John doesn't just say God shows love, or that God has love. He says God is love. It's one of the most breathtaking statements in all of Scripture. Love isn't something God does occasionally — it is the very fabric of who God is.
Notice what John says happens when we live in love: we live in God. When we love — genuinely, sacrificially, practically — we are not just doing a kind thing. We are participating in God's own life. When you choose to love the difficult person at work, the neighbour who never says thank you, the stranger whose background is nothing like yours — you are stepping into the very nature of God. Our world hungers for this. And John says that love — the real thing — is available to us, because its source is inexhaustible.
Questions for Prayer and Reflection
- What would it mean for your ordinary Tuesday to be an act of participation in the love of God?
- Is there someone in your life you find it hard to love? What might it look like to bring God's love to that relationship today?
Prayer
God of love, you are not distant from us —
you are the very ground in which we live and move.
Help me today to live in love,
and in doing so, to live in you.
Let every act of kindness be a small homecoming.
Amen.
Practice
Think of one person today who is difficult to love. Before you encounter them, pray: "God, you love them. Help me to love them too."
Memory Verse
The Mindset of Christ
Bible Reading
"Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 2:3–5 (NRSVue)Reflection
Paul's instruction lands with quiet force: let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. Not the same achievements — the same mindset. The same orientation of the heart.
That mindset is a radical willingness to place others above yourself. To look outward rather than inward. To resist the pull of self-promotion and ask instead: What does this person need from me right now? We are not called to imitate Jesus in his divine nature — that would be impossible. We are called to imitate the way he was human. He didn't seek the places of honour. He sought the people nobody else sought. He didn't protect his comfort. He spent it freely on others. This is a counter-cultural call — and a deeply powerful one.
Questions for Prayer and Reflection
- In what area of your life is God calling you to adopt the mindset of Christ — to look to the interests of others rather than your own?
- What would genuine humility look like in one specific relationship or situation today?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, your mindset is so different
from the air I breathe every day.
Renew my mind.
Help me find my security so fully in you
that I can afford to be truly humble —
not performing humility, but genuinely putting others first.
Amen.
Practice
In one conversation today, make it your aim to ask more questions than you answer. Listen with your full attention. Resist the urge to redirect the conversation toward yourself.
Memory Verse
He Made Himself Nothing
Bible Reading
"Who, though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, assuming human likeness. And being found in appearance as a human, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross."
Philippians 2:6–8 (NRSVue)Reflection
This is the heart of it. The one who had every reason to grasp privilege chose instead to release it. The one who deserved a throne took up a towel. Paul places this extraordinary movement — from the heights of divine glory to the depths of a criminal's death — before us not primarily as doctrine to admire, but as a pattern to follow.
Dema and Carolyn, Baptist Mission Australia workers who have served together in Thailand for fifteen years, know something of this downward movement. Looking back, they write: "Those very moments of brokenness have been when we felt God's love and grace the strongest. They remind us that we are nothing without him and that everything we have is by his mercy." The shape of the cross is not a failure. It is the shape of love — and, mysteriously, the shape of fruitfulness.
Questions for Prayer and Reflection
- What privilege, status, or comfort might God be inviting you to release in order to love someone more fully?
- Where have you experienced God's grace most strongly in a moment of brokenness or letting go?
Prayer
Lord, the cross undoes all my calculations
about power and success.
You made yourself nothing,
and in doing so you changed everything.
Give me the courage to follow you in this —
to release rather than grasp,
to serve rather than be served.
Amen.
Practice
Do one act of service today that no one will notice or thank you for. Do it quietly, as an offering to God.
Memory Verse
Love Makes God Visible
Bible Reading
"Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us."
1 John 4:11–12 (NRSVue)Reflection
No one has ever seen God. And yet John says there is a way God becomes visible in the world — through the love his people share with one another. When we love, we become, in some profound sense, a window through which others can glimpse the God they cannot see.
This gives every act of love an extraordinary weight. The cup of tea brought to a grieving friend. The patient word chosen instead of the sharp one. The hour given to someone who needs to be heard. These are not just kind gestures — they are moments when God shows up through human hands. Notice too that John says God's love is perfected in us when we love one another. Love reaches its intended destination when it flows through us to others. We are not the source; we are the channel. But we are an indispensable part of the story.
Questions for Prayer and Reflection
- Who in your world might catch a glimpse of God through your love today?
- What specific act of love — however small — could you offer this person?
Prayer
Loving God, I am amazed that you would choose
to make yourself known through people like me.
Make me a clear window, not a smudged one.
Let your love flow through me
to the people you have placed in my path today.
Amen.
Practice
Reach out to one person today — a message, a call, a knock on a door — with no agenda other than to let them know they are valued. Make God visible.
Memory Verse
We Don't Do This Alone
Bible Reading
"If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind."
Philippians 2:1–2 (NRSVue)Reflection
Paul's vision of the Christian life is thoroughly communal. He does not picture isolated believers trying hard to imitate Jesus on their own. He pictures a community — united in Christ, sharing the Spirit, bound together by compassion and sympathy — collectively becoming more like the one they follow.
This is good news, because imitating Jesus is too large a task for any of us alone. We need the person who models patience when we are reactive. We need the friend who sees what God is doing in us before we can see it ourselves. We need the community that holds us accountable, not with judgment, but with love. Praise God we don't have to do this alone. As you head into the weekend, give thanks for the people God has placed around you. They are not incidental to your formation — they are central to it.
Questions for Prayer and Reflection
- Who in your church community is God using to help shape you into a more faithful imitator of Jesus?
- Is there someone you could encourage this weekend — telling them one thing you appreciate about who they are in Christ?
Prayer
Loving God, thank you for the community of faith you have placed me in.
Forgive me for the times I have shut out that very community and tried to follow Jesus alone,
as though my faith were a private matter.
Knit our hearts together in love.
Make us genuinely one in spirit and mind.
Amen.
Practice
Contact someone from your church community today — not for any particular reason, just to encourage them. Tell them one thing you appreciate about who they are in Christ.
Memory Verse
Bringing Love to Life
Bible Reading
"Therefore God exalted him even more highly and gave him the name that is above every other name, so that at the name given to Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
Philippians 2:9–11 (NRSVue)Reflection
The movement that began with Jesus emptying himself, taking the form of a servant, humbling himself to death — that movement does not end at the cross. It ends at exaltation. The one who descended is raised to the highest place. The servant is declared Lord. Paul's purpose in showing us this is to show us that the way of self-giving love is ultimately the way of life. It is not a dead end. It is the path God himself has walked, and it leads somewhere glorious.
As you gather with your IBC family today, you come as people who have spent this week reflecting on what it means to be imitators of Jesus — his humility, his servant heart, his extravagant love for the overlooked. This is our calling across the street and around the world: bringing God's love to life, every day, in every place. What does love look like? Love looks like living as imitators of Jesus.
Questions for Prayer and Reflection
- As you head into worship today, what is one specific way you want to live as an imitator of Jesus in the week ahead?
- Where have you been changed this week through prayer and reflection?
Prayer
Jesus, you are the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Show us the way out of living for others' approval
and into authenticity;
that we might walk in the confidence
of our unchanging worth to you
and so carry your courage to speak costly truths,
for it is in the task to be true to you
that we receive life that lasts.
Amen.
Prayer by K.J. Ramsey, The Book of Common Courage.
Practice
As you gather for worship today, look for one person who might feel on the edges — new, quiet, or carrying something heavy. Move toward them. That is the imitation of Jesus.
Memory Verse
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue), © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Devotional content derived from Baptist Mission Australia What's Love Look Like? Pastor's and Leader's Guide, May Mission Month 2026. Used with acknowledgement.