The Fuel on Which the Universe Runs

The Fuel on Which the Universe Runs

“My dear friends, we must love each other. Love comes from God, and when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life. We are now God’s children and we know him.’ 1 John 4:7

No matter our physical age, we all can ‘grow up” spiritually and emotionally. But we need God’s gifts to do that. Most of the “good” that comes from our lives is the result of experiencing the wonderful gift of healing and forgiveness we have received from Jesus. He loved us personally and deeply. The extent of that love is shown by His complete sacrifice on the cross for us. He gave Himself to be cruelly mistreated and killed all out of love for mankind as a whole, and each of us as individuals.

Most of the hurtful things in our lives are the result of separation from God’s gift of love. “Love comes from God.” Real love, the sacrificial kind that doesn’t care what other people think, that love comes only from God. Anyone can love with “human love”. Anyone can have the feelings that make our heart flutter and feel flushed with emotion.

But that is not the sort of love that God gives us. He gives the love that stands full force against hatred and loves in the midst of persecution. He insists on loving those who spit in His face. He never fails to send the warmth of His sunshine or the needed nutrients of His rain. He sends both upon the good and the bad. His love is equally distributed, no matter who the object of that love may be.

Our human love is rarely so. We learn to love the people who are like us, and act differently toward those who are different very early in life. Our little cliques start in elementary school with the lines drawn very clearly between the “popular” and “unpopular”. The life instruction in “loving your own kind” continues on into High School where status is won and lost over who receives the most admiration from anyone else.

Anyone can love the “in group”. God’s love is far different than that, and we are much to be pitied if we do not realize it. The love we yearn for is only received from God Himself. Only God loves unconditionally, and only God can teach us to do the same.

And, if we are followers of Jesus, we have no choice in this matter. This verse says, “When when we love each other, it shows that we have been given new life.” The evidence that we belong to Jesus is the amount of the “God kind of love” that we show. We are called to be different. We MUST be different!

The world should look at a believer and think, “My goodness, they are always kind.” Unfortunately, it often happens that we are drawn right into the world’s undertow of “drama.” We end up smack-talking as good as anyone else. We tell the jokes that belittle others, we ignore those who are different from ourselves, or we pour our life into our “own kind” with little thought about those who are different.

The radical call for every Christian is to love with the “God kind of love!” God is challenging us today to be part of a revolution, a revolution of love! It is love that defines who God is! The Scriptures are clearer about that than they are about anything else: God Is Love!

It doesn’t matter if I have a fancy car with leather seats, the newest racing engine and all the bells and whistles. If I put all my resources into the finest car, hoping people would finally notice me, but have nothing left for the gasoline to run it, I am truly out of luck.

I wonder if that is sometimes the way we live our Christian lives. We want people to look at us, we want to be in the “right” crowd, we want to be able to make sure people notice us. But, having spent all our time on ourselves, we run out of resources and never actually get anywhere. We must fuel our lives with the love of God!

This is not an elective, this is basic Christianity. It doesn’t matter how often I’ve gone to church, how many Scriptures I can quote; the evidence for my relationship with God is how little “drama” there is in my life. The one who loves deeply will keep quiet about those “other people” and will simply love.

I have no doubt that if a group of people agreed together to simply love with God’s love, they would see healing. Their own wounds from unloving circumstances in their own lives would begin to be healed. They would find the maturity they have longed for. And, the world would take notice and wonder where they could get some of the wonderful supply of love. Why don’t we try the grand experiment and love like Jesus loved. What have we got to lose?