The Apostle Paul defines love in a letter written to the church in Corinthians, “Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so I could remove mountains, but have not love I am nothing.
Several years ago I was ministering in a Psychiatric Hospital in California. I was conducting a group therapy, integrating spiritual principles and faith into the life of the patients. The group was sharing their feelings about traumas & issues of victimizations that they had as children that were affecting their lives in the present. As the session was coming to an end; I noticed a new patient; big in statute. He was about 6.2” ft tall and 265 lbs. He did not speak during the session. I invited everybody to hold hands in a circle in the middle of the room to close in prayer. The young man choose not to participate. When I finished praying, the young man, yelled out loud, saying, “that he knows of a feeling more powerful than anything else in the world.”I walked toward him and I asked him to share it; he screamed out loud, saying that it was hatred. There were twenty people in the room; I am telling you, he literally scared the rest of the patients. I told him that I knew of a feeling more powerful than hatred.He asked me what feeling are you talking about. I said, “Love” and Jesus loves you and so do I.” Then the rest of the patients came over and told him that they loved him too. Three months later that man left the hospital filled with love. Before he left he told me that he got a job with a Christian organization driving a truck to deliver food and clothing to the poor, in the Middle East, in Lebanon. Jesus told His disciples, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” The beloved John, wrote the most profound description and demonstration of love in the gospel of John, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him be saved.”
The Apostle Paul defines love in a letter written to the church in Corinthians, “Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so I could remove mountains, but have not love I am nothing.
Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not arrogant; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. When Jesus saw the multitudes; He was moved with compassion and healed them and fed them. Some of you have left your first love; Jesus is asking you to return to your first love. After Peter denied Jesus three times; Jesus appears to Peter after the resurrection. While having breakfast Jesus asked Peter, “Peter, Do you love me? And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things, you know that I love you.” Then Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” As you face the circumstances of your life, today, Jesus is asking you the same question.
DO YOU LOVE ME?
What will your response be?
What kind of action will you take to change the destiny of your life?
