What is love?

Love has been called both simple and profound. To get a clearer understanding of the Love that is God, we can look to the life and teachings of the Master.

I Was serving as a chaplain at a local institution, talking to some residents who were interested in learning more about the Bible. We were discussing what Christ Jesus referred to as the two great commandments—to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself. One young woman said, "I don't think I've ever really known love. What is love?"

What is love? The Bible tells us "God is love" (I John 4:8). Love, then, is actually another name for God. Mary Baker Eddy, author of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, writes of Christ Jesus, "Out of the amplitude of his pure affection, he defined Love" (p. 54). So by better understanding Jesus' life, which illustrated this affection, we should better understand the Principle of his life, divine Love.

Much of Jesus' teaching was through parables, short stories that illustrate moral and spiritual lessons. The familiar parable of the prodigal, recounted in the Gospel of Luke (see 15:11–32), reveals the nature of God's love for man. A man's younger son asks his father for his share of the father's estate, leaves home, and wastes everything in "riotous living" until he is destitude. Even the pigs are eating better than he is. He "[comes] to himself" and returns home to humbly ask his father to hire him as a servant, but his father sees him coming and runs to meet him with open arms, then tells the servants to prepare a big feast. How comforting to know that our heavenly Parent's love is constant, forgiving, unchanging.

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To God's child
February 14, 1994
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