February 26 - 1 Peter 1:22

February 26 - 1 Peter 1:22

“Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.”

Loving each other from the heart seems like such a simple thing, doesn’t it?

Yet at the same time … it is so difficult.

We protect our hearts from each other because we know how easily they can be broken and wounded.

‘Genuine mutual love’ is actually brotherly love … ‘philadelphia’ … the love that comes from each other. The love that is absolutely necessary in the face of all we confront daily. We are confident in the love that comes from God until we are faced with the fact that those whom we need to love us and care for us with no strings attached, aren’t there to do that. Then it becomes easy for us to question the truth of God’s love.

One of the greatest purposes we have on earth is to love each other. Jesus said it … The greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul mind and strength … and the second is just as important … to love our neighbor (our brother … our friend) as ourselves.

The great commandments have nothing to do with rules and regulations, church buildings or programs, events and activities. They have to do with love. Genuine love that comes deeply from the heart.

The heart is where we find the connection to God. In Psalm 42, we read that ‘deep calls out to deep.’ The depth of God’s heart calls to ours. His love reaches to us in the very depths of our hearts. This is the love we share with others, this is the love He sends forth through us … like springs of living water … they will never go dry.

Genuine love … from the depths of our hearts. Nothing else is as important. Nothing else is needed so desperately. Nothing else can be so freely given.