God Is Love

If we go to the Book of Colossians, in the New Testament, reading from Colossians Chapter 1 and verse 4:

“Since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints;…”

What distinguishes a Christian from those who are in the world?

Not how many times we go to church on a Sunday because at the moment we can’t go to church, can we?

Not by the amount of Bible verses we can memorise - no, we are known by our love!

I looked up the Oxford Dictionary to find out the meaning of the word, “love”, and it says, “An intense feeling of deep affection.”

Isn’t that beautiful? And that is how we as believers feel about The Lord Jesus Christ.

And that love, literally, comes out of our innermost being and affects other people.

The most famous verse and chapter in the Bible is 1 Corinthians, chapter 13.

It is all about love and the last verse says, “And now abide these three things; faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.”

1 John 4 verse 8 says:

“God is love.”

So if you don’t have any love in your heart, you don’t have God in your heart.

I heard a beautiful story once about a young soldier that had enlisted in the army and he was put in the barracks with a whole lot of other young soldiers and
there was a sergeant, a rough, tough old veteran, full of scars, a hard-drinking smoking man with a blasphemous voice and vocabulary, and he hated God.

One night, he came in from the canteen as usual.

He had been drinking. It was late but he had been doing this for years, so he knew what to do.

As he walked into the barracks, he saw a young soldier, a Christian boy on his knees by his bed, praying to God.

He sat down on his bunk, this old soldier took off his hob-nailed boots and he stood up and threw his boots at the young boy.

He said, “You sissy” and with that, he passed out on his bed.

Well, the boots cut the young boy's head and he was bleeding.

But the next morning early, because he was a disciplined soldier, at 5 o’clock, he swung his legs out of his bed and thought,
“Where did I put my boots last night?”

And there they were, right next to his bed in perfect position and shining spick and span.

The young soldier had picked up his boots and polished them that night.

This tough old soldier stood up and he looked at this young boy, woke him up with tears running down his face and he said,

“Son, tell me about the love of this God of yours.”

Let's go out today and let us love one another because that is the greatest force in the world.