Day 333: 1 John 4:13–19

We have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him (v. 16).

Do you find it at all peculiar that John alone called himself “the one Jesus loved”? (John 13:23 hcsb). If we believe the Gospel of John was inspired, however, then we must accept that the detail of John’s self-identity was also inspired. Not because Jesus’ love for John exceeded the others but because God purposed the reader to know how John saw himself. At first glance we might be tempted to think John a bit arrogant for terming himself such, but God would never allow a man who received such revelation to get away with that kind of self-promotion.

I’d like to suggest that John’s evolving identity over the course of those decades came out of the opposite kind of heart. God is far too faithful not to have greatly humbled John before giving him such surpassing revelation. (See a parallel concept in 2 Cor. 12.)

I believe quite possibly the heightened positions of Peter and Paul in the era of the early church coupled with the impending martyrdom of each apostle fed abasement in John rather than exaltation. Surely he struggled with terribly perplexing feelings of fear that he, too, was doomed to martyrdom—and yet fear that he wasn’t. Does that make sense?

But as the years went by and the virile, youthful fisherman grew old and gray, I am convinced that John’s weakening legs were steadied and strengthened on the path by the constant reassurance, “Jesus, You chose me. You keep me. And above all else, You love me. You love me! No matter what happens or doesn’t, Jesus, I am Your beloved.”

If any of us had been John during the years conspicuously silent in Scripture, we might have given up. Or at least dropped into a lower gear. Not John. He knew two things, and I believe he grabbed on to them for dear life. He knew he was called to be a disciple. And he knew he was loved. Over the course of time, those two things emerged into one ultimate identity. “I, John, the seed of Zebedee, the son of Salome, the brother of James, the last surviving apostle am he: the one Jesus loves.” Beloved disciple. Somewhere along the way, John, that Son of Thunder, forsook ambition for affection. And that, my friend, is why he was sitting pretty when some of the most profound words ever to fall from heaven to earth fell first like liquid grace into his quill.