Love is the fuel of endurance …

The biblical message is clear: God’s greatest command to us is to love.

To love Him most, and above all others, and then to love others the way Jesus Christ has loved us.

There are reasons why this is God’s great command, one being that love is the fuel of endurance. Love motivates us through whatever life brings our way, as illustrated by Ernest Havemann in Bits & Pieces …

You can see them alongside the shuffleboard courts in Florida or on the porches of the old folks’ homes up north: an old man with snow-white hair, a little hard of hearing, reading the newspaper through a magnifying glass; an old woman in a shapeless dress, her knuckles gnarled by arthritis, wearing sandals to ease her aching arches. They are holding hands, and in a little while they will totter off to take a nap, and then she will cook supper, not a very good supper, and they will watch television, each knowing exactly what the other is thinking, until it is time for bed. They may even have a good, soul-stirring argument, just to prove that they still really care. And through the night they will snore unabashedly, each resting content because the other is there. They are in love, they have always been in love, although sometimes they would have denied it. And because they have been in love they have survived everything that life could throw at them, even their own failures.

Many people are living lives held together only by the fraying strings of hope. By sharing the love of God with them, we rescue them from the perils of this world, and through His shared love their hope is renewed. People who are left unloved lose all hope and cannot endure the troubles of life alone.

“We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters. If someone has enough money to live well and sees a brother or sister in need but shows no compassion — how can God’s love be in that person? Dear children, let’s not merely say that we love each other; let us show the truth by our actions,” 1 John 3:16-18.

How are you demonstrating the love of God in the lives of others? Who are you rescuing with God’s love in action?

Scotty