this is love

"Love is all you need", or so crooned the Beatles in a prior century.  Being young and vibrant at the time, I agreed with this statement.  We were deep into an era of "free love", and I readily partook, thinking that we were at the dawn of a new age.  By the end of the last century, we realized that the "house of love" we had built was grounded on shifting sands, leading to a crash of our culture.  We had not been properly taught to love.  

The Scriptures point to the nature of true Love.  In three places, God's Word says clearly: this is Love.

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 4:10-11).  The love most people think they need is the love of one another.  Though John encourages that love, he bases it on The Love that God gives us in sending Jesus to pay the penalty for our sin, so that we might be able to love and be loved.

This is Love for God: to keep His Commands.  And His Commands are not burdensome (1 John 5:3).  Most people associate love with freedom, not with keeping commands.  However, as John states, and as he goes on to explain, Loving The One Who so Loves us as we keep His commands isn't a burden, but rather the definition of freedom itself.

This is Love: that we walk in obedience to His Commands and, as you have heard from the beginning, His Command is that you walk in Love (2 John 6).  There is this divine loop here:  God so loves us that He sends His Son for us, and once we take in that Love, it becomes the joyful Source of our being able to Love one another and others.  

This Love, which you'll notice I always capitalize to set it apart from other kinds of love, is The Love which truly frees, transforms, and saves.  Let's receive it and pass it to others, including God Himself, in action, including prayer.