“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?  Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.” (I John 3:16-22)  I grew up with the Beatles, so it is not that hard to echo one of their primary messages that “all you need is love.”  Hard to argue with that and pretty easy to accomplish in theory.  Our problem, of course is that we do not live “in theory” but in the harsh cold reality of the difficulty of love.  John reminds us that we have the capacity to love because we have been loved.  We need a full stop here.  There is nothing that will enable us to love as we are called to do, if we fail to remember the depth and breadth of Christ’s great love for us.  At the same time, if we are unwilling to love others, we will slowly, but surely lose the assurance of God’s love for us.  So, how are you doing?  Where do you struggle?  Do you need an assurance of God’s love for you or, do you need a reminder of the call to love in the power of Jesus Christ?  Our Lord’s work is sufficient for all our needs and I do hope that you have a strong assurance of that.  Have a great week!