LEARNING TO WALK IN LOVE
There is a way of moving through the world that is neither hurried nor harsh; it has motion, intention, and a quiet strength. Scripture calls it walking in love. Not speaking about love merely, nor defending it in theory, but placing one foot before the other in the steady practice of it—thought after thought, word after word, action after action. Love is not an ornament added to the Christian life; it is the road itself. “Walk in love,” we are told, “as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us” (Ephesians 5:2). The command is simple; the depth is immeasurable.
Love begins not with our resolve, but with God’s initiative. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). That order is everything. Christianity does not ask us to manufacture affection out of moral grit; it announces that divine love has already been poured out, flooding the heart before the feet ever move. “The love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5). We do not walk toward love; we walk from it—saturated, supplied, and sustained.
Jesus does not leave love undefined. He gives it edges and weight. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you” (John 13:34). The measure is not our sincerity but His sacrifice. And then He presses the point further: “By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). Love is the Church’s accent; without it, we speak Christianity with a foreign tongue.
Paul, with the precision of a master craftsman, shows us what love looks like when it puts on flesh. Love suffers long and is kind; it does not envy; it does not parade itself; it is not puffed up (1 Corinthians 13:4). Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7). This is not sentimental softness—it is moral strength under control, grace refusing to quit. And then comes the staggering conclusion: “Now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). Love outlasts the world itself.
To walk in love is to let love rule the inner life. “Above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection” (Colossians 3:14). Love is not one virtue among many; it is the belt that holds them together. Without it, patience frays, kindness thins, truth hardens. With it, even correction becomes gentle and truth becomes livable.
This love is not opposed to holiness; it is holiness expressed. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind…and you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39). Upon these two, Jesus says, hang all the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22:40). Love is not the abandonment of obedience; it is obedience distilled to its purest form.
And this love grows as fruit, not strain. “The fruit of the Spirit is love” (Galatians 5:22). Not the fruit of willpower, not the fruit of religious anxiety, but the natural outcome of a life rooted in the Spirit. Walking in love, then, is learning to keep step with what God is already producing within us.
In the end, love is the most convincing apologetic and the clearest confession. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). To walk in love is to make God visible in ordinary steps—at tables, in traffic, in disagreement, in forgiveness quietly chosen again.
Love is the “law” of God.
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Lord Jesus, teach us to walk as You walked—rooted in the Father’s love, steady in grace, unafraid to give ourselves away. Let Your love govern our steps, soften our words, and shape our lives, until others glimpse You in the way we love. Amen.
