The Power of Love

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. _{John 13:34}

It is a lot easier to show love when you have been given love. Unfortunately, not everyone has had this experience in their life. There are babies that have never been held, never been sang to or rocked to sleep in the warmth of someone’s arms. When you grow up without getting love or affection, how do you learn to give it, or how do you respond when it is shown? Back in the 1940s, a young Puerto Rican boy grew up in an environment with the absence of love. By the late 1950s he was the president of a notorious drug gang in New York. His name was Nicky Cruz.

We have a tendency, on occasion, to treat people in the same way they treat us. If someone is nice to us, we will be nice to them and if someone snaps at us, we might snap back in return. We say ‘well, if that’s the way they want to be then that’s the way they’ll get it’. When someone does something that hurts or annoys us, we have the potential to revert back to a tit-for-tat mentality. Nicky Cruz had experience this and lived like this his whole life… until 1958. He then met two people who would change his life forever. The first was a young pastor called David Wilkerson; the second was called Jesus. What he received from both, was love.

Nicky: “You come near me and I’ll kill you!”

David: “Yeah, you could do that. You could cut me up into a thousand pieces and lay them in the street, and every piece will still love you.”

The Cross and the Switchblade

Jesus said, love one another, just as I have loved you. The love that we show others should never come from what they have shown us, but should always be a reflection of the love we received from God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples.”

Love is the most powerful attribute you could ever wish to have.