Text: 1 John 4:7-21
Prayer Pointers:
For knowledge of God’s love
For the gifts of the Holy Spirit
For recent graduates
From where does love come? What is its source? Like so many half-truths and lies we tell ourselves these days, we believe that love originates within ourselves, that love springs from our own natural interior selves.
But that is not particularly true.
Within us is the capacity to love, an ability placed there by the Creator who has shaped us in his own image. So, the first thing we have to say about love is that since we are dependent on God for life and existence, even our capacity to love is a gift.
Moreover, we must be taught how to love rightly. The child, with the God-given capacity for love, reaches out in trust, in faith, expecting that someone will answer when he or she calls (notice that trust precedes love…). From the moment that the parent answers, responds, provides, the child learns how love functions. From that moment on, the child asks “what is this? Should I love it? How?”
Lastly, since God is the source of love, we must go to God for the resources to love well. As John points out, we love because God first loved us. If you have ever stood before a city fountain and marveled at the water shooting forth from a jet or overflowing into a basin, do not assume that the water has always been there. It must come from source, from a place that does not exhaust its supply. In the same way, the love we express in the world must originate in the Source.
May your day be grace-filled ~ Pr. Dave Brooks