THE GREATEST IS LOVE

“What the world needs now is love, sweet love

It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,

No not just for some but for everyone.

Lord, we don’t need another mountain,

There are mountains and hillsides enough to climb,

There are oceans and rivers enough to cross

Enough to last till the end of time.”  

(Above is a song made popular by Dionne Warwick)

Today is auspicious. It is my birthday and I want to share about the most marvelous word that transformed me and turned my life around. It is the word LOVE.

There are many types of love.

There is filial love, between parents and their children.

Platonic love between friends.

Erotic love between husband and wife.

However, the greatest form of love is Agape love from God. This love is perfect because it is unconditional and sacrificial.

If you took away, love from Christianity, it becomes just another ordinary religion.Let me explain.

I had pretty messed up my life when I was a young man. I accepted Jesus because I knew that only He can give me a new life and restore my self-respect and dignity. However, as I was still living in sin, no matter, which church I went to, the leaders would confront me. I could not answer them nor live up to their demands and expectation, so I ran for my life, back to the world.

Since the leaders of God, could not accept me, I concluded that God could not accept me. After all, these leaders represented God.

I felt condemned and suffered agonies of mind, that since I was rejected by God, I now, was on a one way ticket to hell.

After two years in the world, I was driving home from work one day still devastated about my lost ticket to heaven. As I parked my car and was about to get out, a cloud filled my car. It was the cloud of God’s Agape love. It was totally tangible. It permeated and saturated me. I was totally immersed and swam in that cloud. It was such an euphoric experience to be cocooned in God’s love.

At that instant, I knew and I knew, there was no sin so big that I have committed, that the blood of Jesus, shed on the cross of Calvary, could not erase or wash away.

I went back to church and guess what? Yes, immediately the leaders confronted me.

I faced them and looked them squarely in their eyes. I said,

“Yes I confess that I am a scum bag, the sinners of sinners, the pariah of pariahs.

I admit it.

It was for this reason that Jesus came and died that excruciating death for sinners like me.

You are all nice people. All of you don’t need Jesus. Only I need Jesus.”

They all ran away because they knew deep down in their hearts, we are all fellow sinners saved by the unconditional and sacrificial love of God. Yes, God restored my spine to face His leaders. Today, I see everything through the eyes of love. My actions are governed by love. Most of all I am sustained by His love.

I end this exhortation by sharing this beautiful verse,

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who ,does not love does not know God, for GOD IS LOVE.

1 John 4 : 7,8

My dear friends, there is no law against love,

Love never fails and

Love covers a million sins.

Of the three, Faith, Hope and Love,

The greatest of these, is still LOVE.