What is Love?

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. (1Jn 3:16)

When I put stuff on this blog, it is not because I have made it. Rather, it is because in my regular readings Holy Spirit has arrested me with the particular scripture being referred to. Such, most definitely, is the case on this occasion. We hear much about love - probably even more than we have ever heard before. And we hear much about what love is. But I don't often hear much about 1Jn 3:16 quoted above.

"By this we know love", and it doesn't recommend a particular conference or line of study. I only wish it did. It tells me love is delineated by death. A couple of verses later it says that love is not in words. True love has the strength of death, as Song of Solomon 8:6 says.

Well, of course, it doesn't really mean that! Well, that is what it says! And that is what it meant for Jesus! As I am writing this, Holy Spirit is bringing so much to mind concerning true love & death.

But such is God's sacrificial love that he doesn't demand the same by way of reciprocation. Note that in the verse above God says your response to my death/love for you is to express death/love for your brothers. And let me say, the Spirit has just reminded me that death/love is an act of will - "nevertheless not my will but yours" said the Lord (Mt 26:39).

This stuff is so radical, that we quickly dismiss it from our minds! But I somehow feel that a church of this kind of love will shake the foundations of Britain to their core.