An Overflow

If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. —1 John 4:11

As we interact with others, we’ll never be able to truly love them with the love of Christ in our own power. However, we have a source of love within us— the love of God who loved us when we were His enemies. He has poured out His love into us. When we love others, we’re just letting His love overflow through us into the lives of others.

Missionary Amy Carmichael said,

There is no need to plead that the love of God shall fill our heart as though He were unwilling to fill us; He is as willing, as light is willing to flood a room that is open to its brightness; willing as water is willing to flow into an emptied channel. Love is pressing around us on all sides like air. Cease to resist, and instantly love takes possession. . . . As His abundance of pardon passes our power to tell it, so does His abundance of love.²

This is the great, great love of God.

² Amy Carmichael, If (Fort Washington, PA: CLC Publications, 1992) 59–60.