Where's the love?

The love that we’re all looking for, can only be found in the Person of Jesus Christ (John 15:13).

Regardless of your religious affiliations or spiritual inclinations, the Creator God, made every human being in His image, and put the desire to love and be loved into every heart. That’s why we all seek it so desperately and some are left utterly despondent when they can’t find it.

Everyone needs and wants the forever, unconditional, faithful, and exclusive love that only seeks the benefit of the object of its love, with no thought to how it will effect the giver. This is agape love; the love of God.

This exclusive love that everyone desires is known solely by Christians, because we know God—who is love (1 John 4:8). It’s only logical to conclude that if God Himself is the very definition of love, then without Him, love is left undefined, therefore unattainable. While we may have some warm feelings, affections, passions and attachments to one another, none of these will ever fully satisfy, because the very nature of love is not in it: the nature of God.

So where’s the love? If our country is saturated with Christians who alone know and possess the love of God, then why isn't it obvious? There’s two major reasons: not everyone who claims to be a Christian is, and those who truly are, don’t always behave as such.

Between the false converts and self-centered true converts of Christianity, it’s difficult for the world to recognize God’s love. The solution? First, our local churches need to stop catering to the world and making services look more like a visit to Disneyland than the Holy land. And here in the south, we're called the "Bible Belt", but there's no Bible in this belt. It's full of bling with little resemblance of the King. We've merely become an accessory. Second, true Christians need to stop all the infighting, jealousy and self-promoting and start knowing God more so we can love Him and others better.

Jesus said, the world will know we’re His disciples by our love for one another (John 13:34-35). But they don’t, because we don’t. The Church has grown cold, near-sighted and ungrateful. We expect more and thank less. We've forgotten what a gift it is to give to others, or to receive a cup of cold water as the great gift that it is. We take too much for granted, think too much of ourselves and too little of Christ and others.

How can we go out into all the world and share the ultimate expression of God’s love: the Gospel, if we don’t faithfully practice loving one another?

May God our Father direct your hearts in His love and in the steadfastness of Christ our Lord (2 Thess 3:5).