How Deep is Your Love?

1 John 3:18-4:6
Tuesday, 20 May 2008

Many of the worst things that can happen to a car's mechanics happen slowly and silently. By the time the oil gauge lights up on your car to tell you that you're low on oil, most of the time you have been low for long enough to cause real damage to the engine. The same is true for our relationships. By the time the red light appears in them, neglect has already undermined the foundations, and it is often too late for repair. Look under your hood; check your oil. Look into your heart; check your relationships.

Reading 1 John 3, one notices that the church's significant concerns have not changed much in the last two millennia. The relationship with God and with other believers remains at the center. The instruction jolts us. Let us love in truth and in action, not just in word and speech. Much is at stake in this instruction, since the well-being of our entire spiritual life is determined by the depth of the love that we have for each other. If we do not love in action, then our hearts are condemned. If we do not love in action, then our prayers are hindered. If we do not show love, then our spirits are wrong. Only through a life of love can we have the power to discern false spirit. Only when we live in love do we have the confidence that the One who is in us is greater than all that is in the world.

Too often we allow a good show or an eloquent speech to turn our heads. We forget that the test of spiritual vitality is found in our actions not in our words. What we should be asking of ourselves and others is not "how deep is your voice" or "how deep are your pockets" but "how deep is your love"?

Sing, "Bind us Together with Love"

Let us pray:
Loving God, your command that we should love one another is clear. Our failure to live in that love continuously is also apparent. We confess that we have not love one another as we ought, and, therefore, that we have not love you as we ought. Forgive us, Lord, and allow that the power of love in us will show itself to be greater than the power of hatred that is in the world. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, whose love is unfathomable. Amen.