We all desperately need love. Even the person who acts like they have it all together has insecurities that make them doubt that they are truly loved. We need a love that we can depend on, that won’t ever grow tired of us, that won’t ever feel we’ve asked too much, and that won’t walk away.
God offers that kind of love to us…a 1 Corinthians 13 kind of love, but He also instructs us to be changels of His love to the world around us (Matthew 5:43-48 and Ephesians 5:1-2).
There are places in scripture like 1 John 4 that seem to provide a way of measuring that love in us. “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” In response to that sometimes we feel pressure to love better, but that will never be the way to pass the test. As you unpack 1 John 4 we find that this deficiency isn’t our lack of effort, but our lack of experience with God’s love coupled with our inability to ABIDE there.
In the end cultivating an ability to ABIDE in Christ’s love may be the answer we’ve been looking for. Without it we will not be transformed and neither will our church or community.
How do you ABIDE? That becomes a very important question. If you’re full of God’s love it will change you and it will spill out of you everywhere you go.