The Love of Christ

I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Sunday morning, the 10th of March, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today.

We start in 1 John 4:8:

“He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

That is how the Christian is known by the world, by his love for one another.

“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”
John 15:13

That is what Jesus Christ did for you and me. He is our absolute, ultimate example of Christian love. He is love, in fact, not good works but love. I have had the privilege of travelling all over the world. I have dined in castles, yes, manor houses. I have been fed beautiful, magnificent, really delicious meals, four course meals with all the finest crockery and cutlery you have ever seen in your life, where it is quite confusing, not knowing which knife and fork to pick up. At the start, to be waited upon by solemn waiters in black suits and ties, not smiling, just going through the paces, and I want to tell you, it is very formal and its quite nerve-racking not knowing what to do next. It doesn’t matter how beautiful that food is, you can’t even taste it. You are standing continually on duty and you have to watch and see what the head of the house is going to do next, not enjoyable at all, very cold and no love there. Just going through the process.

Then I had the privilege of having a meal in a simple road worker’s house in the middle of Australia somewhere, with his dear wife and large family, and the only reason I am there is because he needs the money and I am one of his lodgers. When we sit down at the supper table, we get one lonely lamb chop in the middle of a big plate with one spoonful of baked beans, and that is the meal. I am telling you the truth, and yet the love of Christ in that home was amazing, just the love of the children talking about what they did at school and passing this and passing that, and just loving each other. That lamb chop tasted so nice. You know, when you are a cowboy and working with cattle all day long, you are so hungry. I used to slip out after supper saying, “Just excuse me for a bit”, and I had to nip down to the local pub and get a pub dinner to try and fill my hungry stomach, but those people were so full of love, and I was so lonely, so far away from home, I felt the presence of the Lord in that place.

Today, remember, its not what you do, its who you are that people want to see. They want to see the love of Christ in your life.

Jesus bless you and go and be a blessing to others,
Goodbye.