Key verse: Romans 13:8: “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law,” (NIV).

A Life governed by love begins with recognising God’s sacrificial love for us; a love that is unconditional and demonstrated by Christ’s sacrifice. We love others because God first loved us. 1 John 3:16 says: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” This reference to Jesus’ laying down His life is to help us figure out what love actually is. We know love when we look at Jesus freely giving His life.The Christian love is a really practical matter; it isn’t just words. It is actions.Love is what Jesus did, laying His glory aside and pouring out practical love for us when we were needy and helpless. True love is not a feeling, but an action—a deliberate choice to do what is best for another, no matter the cost.

The greatest commandments are to love God with all your being and to love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:37-40). Christ is the standard of Christian love. Jesus said: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another,” (John 13:34). Loving your neighbour is not new, but loving like Jesus, that’s more than what the law in the Old Testament demanded. But that’s what Jesus expects. He says it again in John 15:12: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” The standard is to love the way Christ loved us and anything short of it is not biblical way of love; it is loving without limits. God is calling us to love our neighbour the way Christ loves us.John summarises what it means to love like Jesus loved in 1 John 3:18: “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” C. S. Lewis put it well when he said: “The more often we feel without acting, the less we will be able ever to act, and, in the long run, the less we will be able to feel.” Warm words must be accompanied by warm deeds. Words are good, but works are better.

Talking about love is very easy; it’s another matter to be walking in love. To love “in word” is to simply talk about someone’s needs, but to love “in action” is to do something about it. Paul said in Romans 13:8, let no debt remain outstanding except the debt of love. Christians live under the continuing duty to show love. One of the ways to make your life count as a Christian is to live a life of love. 1 Peter 4:8 says: “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.”We make our lives to count by loving others.

The nature of God is love.It is not something He has; it is something He is. When an individual receives Jesus Christ as his or her personal Lord and Saviour, something miraculous happens. Their previous sin nature is replaced with the nature of God, and the hallmark characteristic of this new nature is love. The degree to which we dwell and continue in love is the degree to which we dwell and continue in God. Dwelling and continuing in God refer to walking in love. To walk in love is actually to live a life filled with God, who is love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.

• Today’s nugget:God is love. Prayer: Lord help me to love like Jesus Christ. Prayer lines: 08033299824.E-mail: [email protected]. Rev.AbelUkachiAmadi, General Superintendent, Assemblies of God Nigeria.