Human love has failed. As broken marriage relationships and violence provoked by hatred erupt all around us, we realize that man just does not have within himself the ability to love.
Jesus, before leaving the world, prayed that His followers in all generations to come would be kept from the evil one, (John 17:15). This prayer has been answered any time a church or nation acknowledges the sovereignty of God, but the key to the answering of the prayer is that we must be `followers.' Even within the church, as soon as people fail to follow the new commandment Jesus gave to "love one another" (John 13:34), as soon as they cease to read His Word as set out in the Bible, as soon as they cease to pray for one another--trouble sets in among the members.
Lack of love produces quarrels. It is humanly impossible to keep the commandments to love one another--we need help.
Something happens in the Christian world each year at Christmas time. Suddenly we feel very loving toward everyone, and a happiness comes to us we hadn't known all year. Oh blind fools that we are! Can we not see that God Himself is trying to show the world that His love shown to mankind by the birth of a tiny baby was a gift of supreme love given to a world without hope. The world did not welcome Him then any more than it does today--in fact King Herod tried to have Him killed by murdering all the small babies in the country, but God told His parents to take Him to Egypt until the slaughter had ended.
God gave to the world a gift of Love. It seems that God gives a little sample of His love each Christmas--a love which the true Christian is given every day of the year. "God is love" (I John 4:8).
We are told to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, withall your soul and with all your mind and...your neighbour as yourself"(Matt.22:37-39 NIV). Besides being a follower, then returning to God the love He has shown to us, we also must love others as ourselves. If we must rely on God to give us love for others--we just can't love enough on our own-- then we are faced with the problem of loving ourselves.
We know we are utterly selfish human beings wanting our own way, and it is not possible for others to love us until we can love ourselves. We must begin, then, by getting right with God by asking forgiveness for being so difficult to get along with, but then we must also forgive ourselves. This, too, can be a problem from a human standpoint, but it is only by the gift of love from God Himself that we can cut off the remembrance of our past failures and turn a new page for today.
If we can forgive all those who have hurt us and forgive ourselves for the part we played in the broken relationships, then we are ready to accept ourselves as children of God created in His image. We are children of dust, utterly hopeless, but because God loves us, we are acceptable to God and ourselves through the death of Jesus. Then we become lovable to others.
The love of God creates a love triangle: God to us, us to others, and both of us loving God.
© 1999, Doreen Palmer