One of the great realities of scripture is that the most common verses hold the greatest mysteries until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes. So it is with John 3:16—"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

Then what? Surely there's more to the Christian life than just believing.

In This Is How We Know, J. D. Walt invites us on a forty-four-day devotional journey to explore what he refers to as "the second half of the gospel" as presented in 1 John—"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters" (1 John 3:16). The journey of awakening is the Spirit-empowered, hard-fought movement of John 3:16 to 1 John 3:16. This is how we know.