Love—The Fabric of Life

SUNDAY

March 29

Love—The Fabric of Life

We need to eat and drink in order to stay alive. Without liquid to drink or food to eat, we come to an end soon. But in order to live in any real sense of the word, we also need love. Life without love is a subhuman kind of existence. There is a built-in need in us to receive love. We need the love of parents. We need the love of family and friends. We need to be part of a loving community. But just as much as we need to receive love, we also need to give love. We are not truly human if we cannot love. But let’s be clear: True love does not begin with us. The capacity for love is created in us by our Creator. (See Gen. 1:26 and John 3:16.)

How all-important is love in the life of the follower of Christ? Matt. 22:37–39, 1 Cor. 13:1–3, 1 John 3:14.

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God’s love always precedes our love. Whatever else we say about love, this point is crucial. True “love is not an impulse, but a divine principle, a permanent power. The unconsecrated heart cannot originate or produce it. Only in the heart where Jesus reigns is it found. ‘We love him, because he first loved us.’ [1 John 4:19]. In the heart renewed by divine grace, love is the ruling principle of action.”—Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 551.

The famous British author C. S. Lewis uses the terms “Gift-love” and “Need-Love” to differentiate between God’s love and human forms of love. While God wants our love more than anything else, He does not need our love in the same way in which we need love from Him and from fellow human beings. “We [must] begin at the real beginning, with love as the Divine energy. This primal love is Gift-love. In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.”—C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (London: HarperCollins, 1998), p. 121. Our human love needs to be transformed by divine love, so that—while we will continue to yearn for love from others—we will be able to give love in a truly Christlike manner.

From your own experience, what is the difference between human love and God’s love? What kind of human love best exemplifies God’s love? How can we better manifest God’s love in our own lives?