This is love

II John 4-6: “I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father. 5 And now I plead with you, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment to you, but that which we have had from the beginning: that we love one another. 6 This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it.

For John, the picture of a Christ-follower was that of a person who was filled and shared love in Jesus’ name. We as Christians are to be people of love. Our love comes from God and is not our own. It is the love that comes from the Holy Spirit living inside of us, and that happens when we surrender our lives to Jesus. Our love is now manifested in our behavior and the things we do. We have a love that resides inside of us that is not meant to stay there. It is meant to be given to those we come in contact with. If we retain that love and do not share it with the world around us we become stagnant. Jesus said you do not light a candle and hide it under a bushel. No, you put it on a table so the light will illuminate the entire room. In the same way the love that is in us was not meant to be hidden from the world, rather it is meant for us to give to the world.

How do we give our love away? I have seen people emotionally healed from a burden with a smile, or people who are broken repaired from a touch. We live in a world that is desperate and needy. We can donate food to a local drive, help someone change a flat tire, visit a nursing home, hand out Bibles on a street, or buy someone’s coffee next to you in line at the 7 eleven. God wants us to show our love to a loveless world so we will have an opportunity to say, “God just wanted to bless you today, Jesus loves you”.

John wrote this letter to a lady who raised her kids right. He said, “I rejoiced greatly that I have found some of your children walking in truth, as we received commandment from the Father.” It is so strange to see parents these days teaching their kids how to show love to people. We teach our kids everything except to give the greatest gift that we can give and that is our love. If we can teach our kids to love and the reason why we love, this world will see Jesus in a new light. When we love others we evangelize with the greatest strategy that was ever developed and that is the Jesus plan of evangelism; loving your neighbor as your self.

Tomorrows Readings:
Old Testament: Daniel 11-12 New Testament 3 John 1