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Feature

What Love Can Do

By Muriel Larson

The 2-year-old girl weighed only 9 pounds when she was admitted to a hospital. Lisa couldn’t talk or smile. Her mother had refused to care for her. Under a government program, “foster grandparents” were called in to spend time in the hospital with Lisa. After receiving two months of tender, loving care, the little girl had gained 7 pounds, spoken several words and smiled.

People need love! Psychiatrists say many forms of emotional and mental illness spring from a lack of love between parents and children during early childhood. Children who feel unloved and unwanted by their parents develop a feeling of insecurity and worthlessness that may trouble them all their lives.

The Guiding Principle for Life

Lack of love plays an important part in the formation of juvenile delinquents. Doesn’t it seem strange that many undisciplined, angry teenagers come from well-to-do homes—even religious homes? Some of them have been given everything by their parents—except real love.

God’s Word provides us with many great principles for abundant living, but the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13). Romans13:8 tells us to love one another and thereby fulfill the law.

How to Love Others

How can we have and show more love toward others? First, let us realize how much God loves us. John, the beloved disciple, wrote, “We love him, because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). He has filled His Word with expressions of His love and care for us.

When we consider how the amazing love of God led Him to send His Son to earth to pay the penalty for our sins, our hearts must surely respond with love. Such love urges us to repent of our sins.

When we acknowledge Christ as our Savior, we are filled with God’s love. How does this love manifest itself? When I turned my life over to Jesus, I wanted to help others know Him too. I talked about Him to my husband. I tuned in to religious programs on TV and the radio and left booklets where he would find them. I coaxed him into going to church with me. I talked about God to my relatives, neighbors and other people I met. His love filled me and reached out to others. Everyone in my family came to know Christ as Savior.

This newfound love showed itself in other ways. No longer self-centered, I wanted to help others. Volunteering to help at a new day school for children with mental handicaps, I taught several 20-year-olds how to read, write and count. While doing secretarial work for the school principal, I witnessed to her. Eventually she made a decision for Christ.

Sharing Christ’s Love

Spiritually hungry, distressed souls who need to learn of Christ and His love surround us. So do many Christians who need comfort and encouragement. We can also influence our peers and others to head in God’s direction.

Sometimes our love has a tendency to cool off after we’ve been Christians for a while. We can get it back by reading and hearing God’s Word, sincerely repenting and spending time in prayer and praise with God.

Love works miracles! It keeps us from being quarrelsome, backbiting and rude. It keeps us from sinning against God and others. Christ’s love in us can help us and those with whom we come into contact to have abundant—and eternal—life.

DR. MURIEL LARSON is a professional writer and counselor who has had 17 books and many articles published. She has a weekly column in The Times-Examiner and has taught at writers’ conferences around America. More than 100 of her published articles are listed on her blog site.