“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 them” ( 1John 4:16).

There is a saying that “you cannot give what you don’t have!” Let’s say you have a pot of tea. One cannot pretend to pour tea from an empty pot. You must make some tea first and then start pouring. At the same time once the tea gets finished and you need to pour some more and fill up empty cups, you need to fill the pot again. Perhaps this might mean making some more tea again, so as to be able to fill the empty cups. You can’t give what you don’t have!

This saying applies to our lives in many ways. Sometimes we may wonder why we see acts of hate all around us. There are homes where children are abused and then we wonder why. Usually the answer is simple. The abuser cannot be expected to share love, which he too, has no experience of.

On occasions you will find stories of babies abandoned in dustbins, the mother eager to move on with her life. What is happening here is that the mother feeling unloved can’t  extend love to this child of her own. You can’t give what you don’t have!

Likewise, in the same vein, Christians can’t share any love unless they are assured that God loves them, first! “We love because he first loved us” ( 1 John 4:19). It is only after knowing and experiencing God’s love, can we go out and love others unconditionally.

Where you find so much hate around us it is because people have no knowledge of the true love of God. They spit hate because that is all there is they know. One cannot give what they don’t have. But pray that all may come to know the true love of God, and from there go on to share His abundant love! “And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”                   ( Ephesians 3:18-19).

Prayer today: Lord Father God of Abraham, maker of heaven and earth, today I choose love because of your love for me, which I now gladly share that those who do not know you may experience it and come to your saving knowledge, this I pray in Jesus’ name!