Daily Bible Study — 13–19 July 2026
What Does Love Look Like? Courageous Beautifiers
1 John 4:7–16 • Shared by the IBC Home Group
Love Comes from God
Bible Reading — 1 John 4:7–8 (NRSVue)
"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love."
Read on BibleGateway →Reflection
Last Sunday our home group led a service exploring a question our whole congregation has been sitting with: what does God's love look like? Not as a theological abstraction, but as lived experience — in our neighbourhoods, our relationships, our daily walks and ordinary encounters.
The anchor for Sunday's service was this passage from 1 John: "God is love." John does not merely say that God is loving, or that love is one of God's attributes among many. He makes a far more startling claim. Love is not something God does as an expression of who God is — love is who God is. Love is the nature at the centre of all things.
This means that every genuine act of love we encounter — in creation, in relationship, through loss, in the faces of strangers — is a glimpse of God. And every time we love, we participate, however partially and imperfectly, in the very nature of the divine. This week, as we explore what that looks like in practice, we begin here: with the source.
For Reflection
- The claim that "God is love" is one of the boldest in all of Scripture. What does it mean to you, practically, that love is not merely something God does but something God is?
- When have you experienced love in a way that surprised you — where did it come from, and what did it reveal?
Prayer
Loving, holy God, guide our gathering this week. Open our hearts to your presence and unite us in the purpose you have for our lives. Shape us to be people of love and justice and kindness and mercy, so that others may glimpse your beauty through us. Amen.
Practice
This week, pay attention to where you encounter love — in unexpectedly kind words, in beauty, in acts of service, in moments of connection. Keep a simple note of them. At the end of the week, read them back. Notice the source.
Memory Verse
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19 (NRSVue)
Not That We Loved God
Bible Reading — 1 John 4:9–10 (NRSVue)
"God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins."
Read on BibleGateway →Reflection
"In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us." John locates the centre of the gospel in exactly the right place: the initiative belongs entirely to God. Before we reached toward God, God had already reached toward us. Before we understood what love was, love had already taken on flesh and entered the world.
This is the corrective to every religious instinct that makes faith primarily about our effort, our sincerity, or our worthiness. The love of God is not a reward for the loving. It is the ground on which the loving become possible. We do not earn our way into relationship with God; we are welcomed into a relationship that was initiated long before we arrived.
One of the members of our home group shared on Sunday how, following the loss of her mother, she experienced a sudden and vivid sense that her mum was in the safe hands of God. That peace was not something she generated. It came to her. It arrived. That is what John is describing here — love that does not wait to be summoned, but moves toward us in our most vulnerable moments.
For Reflection
- How does it change your relationship with God to know that love's initiative belongs entirely to God — that you are the recipient before you are the giver?
- Can you recall a time when you experienced love arriving, rather than being earned or arranged? What was that like?
Prayer
Thank you, God, that your love is not conditional on ours. Thank you that you moved toward us before we knew how to move toward you. Help us to rest in that love today, and let it be the starting point of everything. Amen.
Practice
Spend five minutes today simply receiving. Not asking, not interceding — just sitting with the reality that you are already loved. Notice what comes up when you stop trying to earn or justify your place before God.
Memory Verse
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19 (NRSVue)
God Cares About the Little Things
Bible Reading — Luke 12:27–28 & 1 John 4:12 (NRSVue)
"Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you — you of little faith!"
"No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us."
Read Luke 12:27–28 on BibleGateway →Reflection
On Sunday, two members of our congregation shared how they encounter God's love through the beauty of creation — in morning walks, in sunrise photos, in dandelions and cactus flowers, in ants carrying seeds and honeyeaters darting between blooms. One of them described feeling both insignificant and special in the same moment: tiny compared to the vastness of what God has made, yet known and cared for in the smallest details.
That tension — vast and intimate — is exactly what Jesus points to with the lilies. God does not only show up in the grand, dramatic moments of our lives. The blue sky is always behind the dark clouds, one of our members said. We just need to look for it. God is not only present in golden moments; he is there in the difficult ones too. We simply need to remind ourselves to seek him out.
The practice of noticing creation is not escapism — it is a form of prayer. To look at a prickly cactus producing a delicate flower and think: God made that, and God made me — is to receive love. Not as a feeling, but as a fact written into the fabric of the world.
For Reflection
- Where do you most naturally encounter God in the created world around you — and when did you last pause long enough to receive it?
- What is the equivalent of the dark clouds in your life right now? Can you look beyond them for the blue sky?
Prayer
Creator God, thank you for the beauty you have placed in the world — from the grandeur of the galaxies to the delicacy of a single flower. Teach us to see you in both the vast and the small. Open our eyes to where you are already at work, so we can join you there. Amen.
Practice
Go somewhere with growing things — a garden, a park, a window box, even a pot plant — and spend a few minutes in quiet attention. You are not looking for a dramatic experience. You are simply practising noticing. What do you see?
Memory Verse
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19 (NRSVue)
The Love That Comes After
Bible Reading — 1 John 4:13–15 (NRSVue)
"By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in everyone who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God."
Read on BibleGateway →Reflection
One of the most moving testimonies on Sunday came from a young woman who lost her mother to cancer. She spoke honestly about the "tricky" work of navigating grief — and about something she had not expected: the additional love that came into her life after losing her mum. A deepened relationship with an aunt. A new, personal faith that was no longer her parents' faith but her own. The community at IBC. Love she may not have found had she not first experienced loss.
She was careful to name the complexity: she felt guilty for the gratitude. How can you be thankful for something that required such pain to arrive? And yet she had come to believe that her mum would be glad — and that God had placed each new relationship in her path for a reason.
John speaks of "abiding" — a word that means remaining, dwelling, making a home. We abide in God and God abides in us. This is not a fair-weather arrangement. The Spirit's presence is precisely the assurance that we are not alone in the hard seasons. And sometimes it is in those hard seasons that love makes itself most concretely known — not in spite of the darkness, but through it.
For Reflection
- Has loss or difficulty ever opened a door to love or connection that you might not otherwise have found? What did that teach you about God?
- What does "abiding in God" look and feel like in the hard seasons of life — not as a spiritual formula, but as a lived reality?
Prayer
Despite the dark clouds of life, you are there, Lord. Thank you for the reminder of that, and for the way your love appears before us when we really need it. Give us eyes to see love arriving, even through loss. Amen.
Practice
Think of a loss — whether recent or distant — that has shaped who you are. Is there love in your life now that you might not have found without that loss? Sit with the complexity of this, and offer it to God without forcing a tidy resolution.
Memory Verse
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19 (NRSVue)
Glimpses of Heaven in the Chaos
Bible Reading — 1 John 4:16 (NRSVue)
"So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them."
Read on BibleGateway →Reflection
One of the home group members described a scene that deserves to stay with us. A group of young people turned up at her house unannounced. The TV was too loud, there were three phones, and the evening was, by her own admission, "not my scene." But amidst the noise, one of the young people began quietly sharing photos of his childhood trauma. "What a privilege," she said, "that he felt safe enough to share." And then, taking them home later, someone connected his phone to the car Bluetooth — and a praise song started blaring. "Glimpses of heaven in the chaos," she called it.
This is what it looks like to "abide in love" in ordinary life. Not a carefully arranged devotional moment, but a messy lounge room, a too-loud YouTube channel, and a young person who felt, without quite knowing why, that he was safe. The love was there. It just required someone paying enough attention to notice it.
John writes: "So we have known and believe the love that God has for us." Knowing and believing — both. It is not only an intellectual affirmation. It is an accumulated, embodied experience: I have seen this love at work. I have noticed it in unexpected places. I believe it is real.
For Reflection
- Where have you recently experienced a "glimpse of heaven in the chaos" — a moment of unexpected grace or connection in the middle of ordinary, imperfect life?
- What would it take for you to be more available to those moments — less quick to retreat to what is comfortable and familiar?
Prayer
Lord, open our eyes to notice where you are already at work — especially in the messy, unexpected, uncomfortable places. Give us the courage to stay present in the chaos long enough to glimpse heaven. Amen.
Practice
Today, stay in one uncomfortable or inconvenient situation a little longer than you would normally. Don't fix it or escape it — just stay present. Notice what is happening. Notice who is there. Is there love working in it somewhere?
Memory Verse
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19 (NRSVue)
A Faith That Is Personal, Never Private
Bible Reading — 1 John 4:11–12 & 18–19 (NRSVue)
"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 lives in us, and his love is perfected in us."
"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us."
Read on BibleGateway →Reflection
One of the home group members — a historian who has spent years studying the personal letters of African American soldiers in the Civil War — drew a surprising connection. Many of those soldiers could not read or write; literacy had been deliberately withheld as an instrument of control. Some officers wrote letters on their behalf, soldier and officer sitting together, the soldier dictating his heart to his loved ones.
Paul did something similar in the letter to Philemon — writing on behalf of Onesimus, a runaway slave, asking his owner to receive him back not as a slave but as a brother in faith. The historian drew three lessons: Christianity is liberating, it transcends every social barrier, and it is irreducibly personal. "We live in an age of algorithms," he said. "But our faith is one we share with one another — person to person, handwriting to handwriting."
This is what John means when he says perfect love casts out fear. Fear belongs to the transactional, the impersonal, the power-laden. Love — real love — undoes those structures. It sits down with you, asks what you need to say, and writes it out on your behalf. And then it asks you to do the same for someone else.
For Reflection
- In a world of algorithms and digital distance, what does it mean to maintain a faith that is genuinely personal — shared person to person, in your actual community?
- Is there a fear in your life that is keeping you from loving someone more fully? What would it look like for love to cast that fear out?
Prayer
Lord, we thank you for the heartfelt sharing of your love — and how it is always a personal relationship with you. Cast out the fears that hold us back from loving others well. Help us be present to the people right in front of us. Amen.
Practice
Write something. A card, a letter, a handwritten note, even a thoughtful text — to someone who needs to know they are seen and loved. Make it specific and personal. This is what faith in action looks like.
Memory Verse
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19 (NRSVue)
Partnering with God's Restoration Project
Bible Reading — 1 John 4:7–16 (NRSVue)
"Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 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 lives in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in everyone who confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them."
Read on BibleGateway →Reflection
Dialling in from Queensland last Sunday, one of our small group members offered a name for the call that runs through this whole passage: courageous beautifier. It means partnering with God in his great restoration project — bringing the beauty of shalom, wholeness, peace, and flourishing to a broken world. It means actively seeking restoration, bringing dignity to those who are marginalised, and reflecting Christ's love in practical, everyday ways.
The starting place, she said, is noticing where God is already at work — and joining in. Not imposing our agenda for love onto a neighbourhood, but paying enough attention to see what God is already doing there, and offering ourselves as participants. And then especially noticing the people who get left behind or overlooked. The young person sitting on a blue plastic mat. The person in the waiting room. The tradie at the door.
As we gather today, the whole week comes together. We have seen God's love in creation, in loss, in personal relationship, in letters, in praise songs playing unexpectedly in cars. "God has imagined into all of us a creative contribution to his cosmic restoration project," she said. Each of us is invited to be a co-worker with God. That is the call: not grand or dramatic, but present, attentive, and courageous enough to stay when it is uncomfortable. Beautifiers — right where we are.
For Reflection
- Where in your neighbourhood, workplace, or daily life do you sense God is already at work — and what would it look like to join in with what you see?
- Who are the people in your orbit who might be getting "left behind or overlooked"? What is one small, concrete thing you could do this week to notice them?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, thank you that you did not stay distant, but stepped into our broken world to restore its beauty. You invite us to be co-workers with you, right where we are. Open our eyes to notice where you are already at work, so we can join you. Help us live out an embodied faith in our neighbourhoods, especially noticing those who are left behind or overlooked. Shape us into courageous beautifiers — in things seen and unseen — and use us to bring your love to life every day and in every place. In your precious name we pray. Amen.
Practice
As you worship today, bring one name — one person in your neighbourhood or community who is overlooked or lonely. Hold them in your prayers during the service. And then, this week, do one thing to let them know they are seen.
Memory Verse
"We love because he first loved us." 1 John 4:19 (NRSVue)