May 16, 2023, Could We Just Love Each Other?

"Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (1 John 4:11, ESV)

Could we just love each other? It sure seems like a simple answer to all the world's troubles. If we could genuinely love each other, the world would be a much better place than it is now. Our marriages and families would be better if we could genuinely love each other. In all my years of experience, it would take the love only God can give to make that happen. I rest assured that is what John was thinking: God is love. It has to start there. God's love has to somehow get to His people. Therefore, He made His love visible by sending His Son so we might live through Him.

The key is that we have to be touched by God's love in such a way that we know and will continue to know He has loved us. Only then will God's love become visible through us. When people realize that God loves them even though they don't deserve it, that love starts reaching their heart level. Only then can we begin to give it away or share it.

In this place of the realization of God's love, we realize that we ought to love one another. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love keeps no record of wrongs. All this becomes possible and mandatory in His Kingdom.

God is love. God has loved us. We ought to love each other.