The Power of Love

Ephesians 3:17, 19 – “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love…know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.”

The Bible has a great deal to say about kindness and brotherly love. In the six chapters of Ephesians it is mentioned no less than 14 times. Why? Because love generated by the Holy Spirit reflects the warmest of all God’s shining attributes and is the most powerful force in the world! If we are “rooted and grounded” in that holy soil, we will bring forth all the beautiful clusters of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). Life will take on new meaning, and the world will be attracted to the One who motivates such winning conduct (John 13:35).

In Illustrations from Literature, Amy L. Person reminds us that sometimes in our eagerness to get people to do what we want, we forget the admonition of Scripture and selfishly resort to nagging and scolding. This does little good and frequently produces great harm. To bolster her contentions, she quotes Aesop’s fable of the wind and the sun arguing about which was the stronger. At last the sun said, “Look at that traveler down there. Let’s see which of us can get him to take off his cloak. I’ll let you begin.”
While the sun hid his face behind a cloud, the wind began to blow; but the harder he blew, the more firmly the poor fellow held his garment about him. Finally the wind gave up. Then the sun came out and shone so warmly that the man soon removed his coat. Amy Person comments, “Many times kindness and gentleness will get results when fussing and scolding can do nothing but fail.”

Is your life so full of Jesus that His love flows out in all your actions? If not, your Christian testimony will be weak, anemic and ineffective.