Staying Power

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.

John 13:34

A cartoon in a national magazine showed a couple standing before a minister during their wedding. The minister, looking at the bride, said, “The correct response is ‘I do’—not ‘It’s worth a try.’ ”

Love—in marriage and in other relationships—requires dogged commitment on our part. Contrary to popular opinion, love doesn’t come naturally for us humans. Love is others-centered and self-sacrificing. We are self-centered; and, in our own natural selves, we care little about sacrifice unless powerfully motivated.

In fact, the Bible teaches that only someone who really knows God through Jesus is capable of the kind of love the Bible describes. John wrote, “Love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:7–8 NIV).

Paul taught that God’s love is “poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5), and Jesus said that the world would recognize that we are Christians by our love (John 13:35). Love grows as we nurture it. It develops as we feed it. It expands as we persist in it. That kind of love has staying power.