The Simple Things: Love

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment.

1 John 4:16-17

In 1961 the Broadway show Carnival opened, its theme song, Love Makes the World go ’Round by Bob Merrill, an immediate hit. Such legends of my day as Paul Anka, the Everly Brothers, Bing Crosby, and Johnny Mathis included it in their repertoires. Of course it was about romantic love: “a silver song, making the earth whirl softly”.

Come to think about it though, real love began in the beginning, before the beginning, with the triune God who did make “the earth whirl softly” with the silver tones of His creative voice: “Let there be…” and there was (Genesis 1:3).

Regard the God whose very nature is love. In his book, The Reason for God p.215, Timothy Keller describes the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit as a dance, each in mutual love with the other. When God created us He invited us into that dance of love with Him (p.219). No words exist to compare God’s love to that of the romantic. As Brennan Manning says in The Ragamuffin Gospel: “I could more easily contain Niagara Falls in a teacup than I can comprehend the wild, uncontainable love of God.”

1 John is loaded with that kind of love. We can know it; we can rely on it; we can live in it; we can have confidence in eternity, as long as we have God in us: If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God (1 John 4:15). It’s that “simplicity which is in Christ”.

Let’s frame the simple things with love, ladies. If God is in us, God’s love is in us, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God (1 John 4:7). A life of love should then follow: Everyone who loves the father loves his child as well (1 John 5:1).

God, who is love, makes the world go ‘round for those who live in Him.

Nancy P