Love, the Word of Life

There is no doubt about it; love is running rampant in our family. Lauren and Taylor’s wedding was a great experience of love between the two of them as well as the outpouring that I felt with all of our friends and family celebrating with us. Our niece Kaylynn and her fiancé are a real solid couple and are next up on what is now a wedding parade. The Cornelius family with Ashley and Matt, Teya and Jeremiah, and Curt and Jean are a continuing love story that fills our hearts. I have to list Kayla and Grady’s marriage too, they are wonderful, and she’s our bonus daughter. And now to top the wedding cake in this parade are Ani and Daniel getting married. We just had the fantastic experience of meeting Ani’s family and friends at the engagement party and seeing Daniel’s friends and our side of the family get to know each other. I loved every minute, even kicking the evening off with the honor of blessing the rings and relationship in front of our new friends and I am indeed deeply honored.

It is only by God’s grace that such overwhelming joy should be mine and as undeserving as I feel that I am, I will take it just the same and in the spirit that it was given. In honor of these kids and God’s working in our lives I offer a few thoughts on love.

The first Epistle of John offers a clear picture of love and I appreciate how John starts his letter off from a position of strength, standing on the rock of his apostleship:

1 John 1: 1 – “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”

Once he sets the stage and completes the foundation for his letter John talks about walking in the light and forsaking sin as a result of it. He addresses the letter to his dear children (2:1, 12, & 13), his dear friends (2:7), fathers (2:13 & 14), and young men (2:13 & 14). He tells us how we’ve overcome the evil one, been forgiven, and known the father. He warns us not to love the world and that the antichrist is already walking the earth. Then John tells us about love, where it is from and that it is the reason we can overcome the world.

1 John 3:1 “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”

First we hear how great a love the Father has for us, giving his son as a sacrifice to reconcile us to Himself, then John tells us how to love with a couple of my favorite verses (yes, at least in part because it confirms my assertion that love is a verb), 1 John 3: 16 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.” with 1 John 3:18 “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”

John then continues with more warnings and an admonition to the test the spirits and comes right back to the powerful word of life that can overcome ungodly spirits. He counsels us with words that end in a classic three-word phrase; read it here, 1 John 4: 7 & 8 “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

Love your friends, love your parents, love your children, love your God, and love all those He puts in your path. Love and cherish them all.

I struggled with the title for this post so I decided to bookend it with the alternate title:

Love: the Word of Life.

In His grip,

jerry