Saturday, April 20, 2024
Jesus taught His followers that His love for us would change the world. It’s not about power, it’s not about being clever, it’s about love- extraordinary, supernatural, take your breath away, love.
This kind of love makes people look to God and realize that only He could’ve inspired the love they experienced in that moment.
But I think if we were to get honest, we would say this is rare and that we don’t love people most of the time in this way either.
Jesus prayed the night before He was betrayed: “...so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.” John 17.23
God expressed this love in its most pure form on the cross. It showed that God had a willingness to give what had unsurpassable worth, on behalf of a people with no apparent worth. Then He turns to those who have received this love, and asks us to give that love away.
Someone once asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment. And He responded by giving two:
“’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matthew 22.37-39
Why is the second like the first? Because out of necessity, one flows from the other. When people see this love, they are literally drawn into the family of God.
God doesn’t primarily depend on the words of His followers to bring people into the Kingdom, or clever arguments, but on His disciples participating in His love so that it fl oods the boundaries of the people inside the church and outside the church.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13.1-2
Paul is saying all these things are devoid of any real value, if they are not done in love. It’s nothing but religious noise.
Life in the flesh is striving to get what you feel you don’t already have. It’s about living out of an empty center and filling it yourself.
And in a religion we tend to make ourselves feel right with God by doing all the right things and believing all the right things. And then we
miss the heart of the Christian life. Don’t miss out. Let this Valentine’s Day be a reminder of the greatest love of all.
