True Love Never Loses Its Power!
In a fallen world, Christians still stand! And that remains possible because of the animating power of love, which God has imparted to each of His children, enabling them to share it with other members of the human race. “We love,” says the apostle John, “because He first loved us” (I John 4:19).
Love must be cultivated on a one by one basis, with respect to individuals one chooses to impact. It seeks to address specific deficits in another life, attempting to meet a particular necessity an individual may call for. It is to be trated like a tender plant requiring careful, continual nourishment at regular intervals, so it may grow.
Love originates within a person, and it bears some characteristics of the provider. It is something which may be learned at first, but after a while it becomes a natural disposition, flowing freely from its giver.
A wise commentator indicated that “loving everybody in general may be an excuse for loving nobody in particular.” Someone else illustrated that idea in verse form: “To love the world/For me is no chore/My only problem/Is the man next door!”
In his best-selling volume, “Tuesdays With Morrie,” author Mitch Albom quotes Morrie remarking that “the most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” And the late Norman Vincent Peale confirmed it when he wrote that “loving and being loved are opposite sides of the same coin.”
Legitimate love can be the experience of secure, sincere, stable individuals only, in both giving and receiving it. As Donald G. Bloesch observed: “Proud people cannot love, because to love means to be emptied of self and dedicated to the glory of God and the welfare of others.” True love is not self-seeking; it is voluntarily and freely offered to whomever is chosen as its object (I Corinthians 13:4-8a).
Love may be conveyed in words, manifested through physical gestures, or expressed in other legitimate ways. Yet, it is exemplified most powerfully through giving, especially in the giving of one’s self, as the Bible abundantly illustrates it with the gift of Jesus Who came to save those who follow Him in repentance and faith (John 3:16).
Because love is such an important ingredient for healthy and joyous living in the world, every person should carefully seek genuine, human objects of love, while remaining always open to be loved by others also. Love’s supply is never depleted when love is given away!
There’s much truth to the popular song that declares, ’tis love that makes the world go ’round! But only real love can accomplish that! Avoid all unworthy substitutes, and the manifold caricatures of it, which can never achieve what authentic love alone can do! There is power in love, and true love never loses its power!
