Devotional 25 August 2025

August 25, 2025 • Steve Torres

1 Peter 1:24-25.jpg

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for ‘All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.’ And this word is the good news that was preached to you.” (1 Peter 1:22–25, ESV)

Peter weaves together the Christian life with a single thread: love. It begins with God’s eternal, initiating love. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son” (John 3:16). This love is not earned, nor is it fleeting, it is imperishable, grounded in the Word made flesh (John 1:14).

Our response to God’s love is obedience. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). Obedience purifies the soul, not as a work of self-cleansing, but as a reflection of God’s love shining upon us. Like a mirror catching disinfecting light, our hearts are refined by what they reflect. As John writes, “If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

This obedience inevitably flows outward in love toward others. Peter commands, “Love one another earnestly from a pure heart.” John agrees: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20). To love God is to love those begotten of Him (1 John 5:1).

And this love is secure, because it does not spring from fading flesh. “The grass withers, the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever” (Isa. 40:6–8). The eternal Word, Jesus Christ, is the gospel preached to us, and He guarantees that love born in Him will never fade.