1 John 5:1–5
1 Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him.
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.
4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.
5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
The Summer of Love 1967. I was 14 looking forward to 15 knowing in a few short months I would get my learner’s license. The Beatles were the phenomenon and I listened to them on my transistor radio. “All You Need is Love” was the popular song coming out from the Beatles. The “Summer of Love” brought us the hippies, LSD, anti-war protests, and free love especially popularized in San Francisco’s neighborhood “Haight-Ashbury.” I vaguely remember the 50’s but the 60’s were a great time to live experiencing things like Vietnam, drugs, the anti-establishment, and moving from the Beatniks to the hippies. We even got to learn how to hide under our school’s desk in case of a Russian nuclear bomb was launched. We learned from Woodstock about how not to do a concert filled with drugs, alcohol, and free love. (By the way, I was young and stupid back then.)
Love! How do we know what true love is? Find Jesus, truly find Jesus and you find true love. When we allow the love of God to come into our lives we are “born again” into the Kingdom of God. It is in finding Jesus and accepting Him into our lives that we find true love. Love is more than an emotion. Love is a choice. We learn love. We choose love when we accept Christ into our lives.
To choose Christ as Savior is to choose His love to live in us. We learn of a greater love than the world has to offer. We yearn, desire, and grasp for love in our lives. We do many things to have the “feeling” feeling of love and miss out on what true love is. Many eat a cereal box of love. They eat the cereal and enjoy the empty sugar-filled calories for a short time. Quickly the energy grained from the cereal wears off. The body once more cries out for more and is filled once again with empty emotions.
Instead of meditating on the world for love, we should meditate on the love of God. God’s love is not what can be done for Him, but what He has done for us. Jesus said in John 15:9, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.” Jesus proved His love. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
Paul writes in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
I loved growing up in the Sixties. The lessons taught were more than the empty calories found in a box of cereal. For those truly listening there was a great lesson. It was about true love. The love of a Savior Jesus, who in spite of everything else, still loves us.
Do you have the love of Jesus in your life?