An Atheist's Witness

Read: 1 John 3:11-18

LOVE the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. --- Matthew 22:37

The Bible In One Year:
1 Samuel 4-6
Luke 9:1-17

Aware that love of God and neighbor is a central teaching of Scripture, I did my doctoral dissertation on "The Concept of Love in the Psychology of Sigmund Freud." I learned that this influential thinker, who had no faith in God, nevertheless stressed the supreme importance of love.

Freud wrote, for example, that the best way to "escape from the cares of life" and "forget the real misery" is to follow the path "that expects all satisfaction to come from loving and being loved." On this point, Freud was in agreement with the Bible, which focuses on love.

Scripture teaches that "God is love" [1 John 4:8]. It also teaches the importance of "faith working through love" [Gal. 5:6]. So the great problem we all face is how to rid ourselves of sinful self-love while sincerely loving God and neighbor [Matt. 32:37-39; 1 John 3:14]. The gospel with its message of the life-transforming love of Christ provides the only answer to that problem. Paul declared in Romans 5:5, "The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit."

Have you experienced the infilling of God's love? Only when you trust Jesus as Savior will the Holy Spirit of love begin to flow in and through you. --- Vernon Grounds

Love divine, all loves excelling,
Joy of heaven to earth come down;
Fix in us Thy humble dwelling,
All Thy faithful mercies crown. --- Wesley

GOD POURS HIS LOVE INTO OUR HEARTS TO FLOW OUT TO OTHERS.