“All you need is love, all you need is love, all you need is love, love. Love is all you need.” I grew up with the Beetles playing in my ears but every time I come to a fresh realization of God’s love for me, this song is what seems to play from my heart. As if the Lord is saying to me: “All you need is love, Michelle.”
As Paul says in 1 Cor 12:31 as a preface to 1 Cor 13, the love chapter of the bible: love is the “most excellent way.” In fact, Paul felt that compared to faith and hope, love was the greatest (1 Cor 13:13).
God is Love
Not only does love originate with God: “God is love.” (1 John 4:8), but God has designed us with the God-given ability to enter into love relationships. First with Him and then with others. We are designed by His love, for His love, to love.
“This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:9-11)
When we operate in this love that He has designed us for, the effect of love is the experience of God.
This just blows my mind. The effect of love is the experience of God. The simple act of loving brings the Almighty God straight into our life experience. When we love: He is present with us, lives with us and His love is completed in us. People experience His love when they experience our love for them.
1 John 4:12 (AMP) “No man has at any time [yet] seen God. But if we love one another, God abides (lives and remains) in us and His love (that love which is essentially His) is brought to completion (to its full maturity, runs its full course, is perfected) in us!”
Therefore it follows: John 13:35 “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The greatest indicator of our fruitfulness (love is a fruit, Gal 5:22-23), or the effect of Jesus in our lives: is the presence of love in our lives. Therefore, in verse 34 (the previous verse) Jesus commands: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
Jesus does not expect us to have what he has not given us first. If he commands us to love, He gives us His love first. Rom 5:5 “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”
This implies for me that the ability to love does not come from me, it is a supernatural ability. I know this to be true, because if you give love away, you never seem to have any less love yourself. In fact, it feels like you have more. When you choose to love, even though you don’t feel love, love seems to develop in your life.
We are to remain in love.
It is to be a characteristic of our lives. Jesus said to “remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.” (John 15:9-10) Jesus knew the way of love, lived the way of love and instructs us to live like he lived.
“If you love me, you will obey what I command.” John 14:15
“And this is love: that you walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning: his command is that you walk in love”. 2 John 1:6
There is nothing as beautiful as love. It is truly…all we need.
Father, thank you for your love. Thank you that you sent Your Son into this world for love, reconciling all of us in relationship with You. Help me to know this love of Yours and be convinced that nothing can separate me from Your love. Let love be the characteristic of my life. Let my life be love demonstrated. May my heart be ever true to You.
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