May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

Devotion based on 1 Thessalonians 3:12

There is universal agreement that the world needs more love. Politicians proclaim that we need to show more love to each other. Law enforcement is dismayed by the lack of love in their communities. Families struggle where there is a lack of love.

If we all agree that the world needs more love, why isn’t there?

There’s nothing wrong with the concept. Showing genuine love to others and receiving it from others is always a blessing.

The problem lies in the execution. We don’t carry out what we proclaim. The entertainer who walks off the stage with an “I love you” doesn’t even know your name. And if you showed up at her house to get an autograph, likely the response would be less than an embrace and a dinner invitation.

More seriously, we all struggle to do what’s needed—more love. Because what is fighting us constantly in showing more love is a sinful nature that inherently will always put itself first.

But there is one who came in perfect love. Only love could cause the purity and perfection of God to clothe himself with flesh. Jesus humbled himself so that he could move from the manger to the cross and to the tomb. Every step that he took on this frail planet was taken in love.

And it is his love that inspires our love. Since God loved us, we have the motive and the example to show God’s love to others in how we speak and act.

More love? Absolutely. We all need it. And Christians have the best reason and the best way to show it. Point to the perfect love of Jesus.

Prayer: