While I was in rehab and for the few weeks I have been home I have been receiving a four word message repeatedly from the Holy Spirit. It is, “Love is the answer!” My inquisitive mind kept wondering what the question might be. My research turned up quite a few possibilities. I prayed about which question to write about in the blog. Then I realized that love is the answer to most questions we encounter living life as a Christian.
God is many things and the Bible tells us that one of them is love. It is His love for us that caused Him to send Jesus to Earth to die for our sins in our place so we could have eternal life (John 3:16). God’s mercy, grace and blessings we receive as His children are all demonstrations of His deep and abiding love.
Just as God’s actions toward us are guided by love, our actions as His children should also be guided by love. Jesus teaches us to love one another as brothers and sisters in God’s family; to love our neighbors; and to even love our enemies. In the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, Paul gives us a detailed definition of love that I have written about before, but it bears repeating so you may want to read that entire chapter again. He concludes that faith, hope and love will last forever and the greatest of them is love. Love is powerful when it is true to that definition.
Martin Luther King, Jr. encountered a lot of hatred. He rightly pointed out that hate will never drive out hate; only love can drive out hate, so he met their hatred and violence with love and peace. As a Christian boy growing up in a segregated city, I never heard Dr. King say anything I disagreed with because it was clear to me that the nonviolent protests of that movement were in accordance with God’s word and especially with Jesus’ teachings. The answer to racial injustice was love, not hate, and love is still the answer to our problems today.
Love may not be the solution to every problem we encounter or the answer to every question we might have, but from my long years as a Christian I can tell you with certainty that love will never make matters worse.