Everyone Will Know

Today is the ninth day of February and "love is in the air."  Sunday will bring us Valentine's Day.  I am one week into a month-long teaching series on the subject of love.  Most, if not all, stores are displaying pink and red hearts and lots of chocolate.  

Since love is the topic of the month, I might as well dedicate today's blog to the same.  I apologize for putting that tune in your head.  With that apology out of the way, I ask this question:  What is love?

As a Christ-follower and Bible-believer, I enjoy looking to His text to find answers to my questions.  Here's what I find (in part):

1 John 4:8 (NIV)
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

That's an excellent place to begin.  What is love?  God is love.  That three-word answer holds volumes-worth of material.  I'll mention now, from the material, that those three words remind us that we will only know real love when we know God.  It is impossible to please God without love; it is also impossible to love fully without God. 

1 John 4:19 (NIV)
We love because he first loved us.

As we learn to love from God's loving us, we are prepared to love in the ways that Christ commands.

Mark 12:30-31 (NIV)
"'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

We know what He calls us to do.  How do we obey Him in His call to love?  I'll leave you to answer that for yourself, but not by yourself.  Ask God and listen.  He will lead you in the way of love.

As you listen to Godly counsel, Biblical teaching, trusted friends, and God's gift of a still small voice, you may still have unanswered questions.  Most likely, you will.  When you do struggle to know what to do next as you seek to love, take the advice of Bob Goff. 

"It can be a tough question to answer, honestly, but it can also be an easy one.  Let me tell you what I do when I don't know what to do to move my dreams down the road.  I usually just try to figure out what the next step is and then do that.  I know it sounds too simple, too formulaic; it seems like there must be more to it.  But there isn't.  For most of us, that next step is as easy as picking up the phone, sending an email, writing a letter, buying a plane ticket, or just showing up.  After that, things start happening.  Things that perhaps have God's fingerprints on them.  You'll know which ones do and which ones don't.  Pick the ones that do." (page 216)

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Go take your next step.

John 13:35 (NIV)
"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

#ordinarylives

For further reading:
Goff, Bob Baker. Love Does: Discover a Secretly Incredible Life in an Ordinary World. Nashville, TN.: Thomas Nelson, 2012.