LIVING IN LOVE

1 John 4:16
We know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and he who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. (WEB)

We are called to live a life of love. In today's Scripture passage, the Apostle John says that whoever remains in love remains in God, for God is love. The New International Version translates 1 John 4:16 this way... And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

While the call to 'live in love' seems like a tall order, it really isn't complicated. Since Jesus told us that the  Kingdom of God belongs to little children (Luke 18:15-17), I choose to believe that anything that is too difficult for a child to intuitively live out is too difficult... period.

If you look at the heart of a little child, you will see a love sponge. Our God and Father has woven the need for love into their DNA and without it, it is difficult for them to cope. Studies in orphanages around the world have shown us that without the practical, expressed love of the care givers, little babies can suffer severe emotional and physical trauma.

Each one of us carries within our being a deep need to be loved. This need was embedded in us at our conception and it remains with us today. Since we were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) who is described in today's Scripture as love itself, we too have a tremendous need to love and be loved.

My prayer today is that the Holy Spirit would help us to truly receive the Kingdom of God like a little child so that we could open up our hearts to love. May God help us return to a place in our hearts where we can receive all the love that we were created to receive so that we can live in the constant place of being loved by the One who is love itself.

Ephesians 3:14-21
14 For this cause, I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that you may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know Christ’s love which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to him be the glory in the assembly and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. (WEB)