Where Is the Love?

One of the things that God has explicitly commanded us to do as Christians and as children of God is to love. The Commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and to love thy neighbor as thyself (Mark 12).  The Scripture also states that without love, we are nothing (1Corinthians 13). So the question today is, "Where is the love?"

One of the mistakes that we've made in the Church is that, we too, have equated the substance of love with emotional sentimentality. So if we don't experience a particular "feeling," then we don't automatically associate that with love. This is incorrect. In order to appropriately and effectively follow the divine commandment of love, we must first understand the substance of what "love" is.

The Bible succinctly says that God is Love (1John 4). Therefore, the first thing we want to understand is that love is not an action first, it's a state of being that produces certain acts. Many people, in trying to love, focus more on behavior than they do being. This is a mistake. God is not an act. He is a Person. So the substance of love is God.

So, if we want to know where is the love, just ask, where is God? In order to identify and create love in our personal environments, in our homes, on our jobs, in our neighborhoods, even in our churches, we have to ask, "Where is God?" This is significant, because whether we're conscious of it or not, the level of God-consciousness and God-promotion in our society has severely diminished. But I'll make it personal for you. Does your family proactively pray together? Not you individually, together. 

What things are being organized in your neighborhood, on your block, in your suburb, that's significantly designed to promote God and to lift up the name of Jesus? At your church, what's the Praise Index of your congregation? Can 75% of your members be identified as "worshipers" or is it still just the remnant?

Generally, when we talk about love, we want to start with charitable acts and good deeds. No, no, no my friends. You want to know where is the love? We need to first start identifying, "Where is our God?"

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we come before Your Throne of Grace once again, asking You to have mercy on our souls. We confess Father that we have not been as diligent as we should be in fulfilling Your Divine Commandment to first love You and then to love one another. We ask Father that You renew our minds, and let us not just think of love in terms of good deeds and works, but in terms of the manifestation of Your Spirit, which allowed You to send Your only Begotten Son to die for the sins of the world. It is in His Name, the Mighty Name of Jesus, that we do pray, Amen.