The best use of life is love.
The best expression of love is time.
The best time to love is now.
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THE BEST USE OF LIFE IS LOVE
Love should be your top priority, primary objective, and greatest ambition. Love is not a good part of your life; it’s the most important part.
The Bible says, “Let love be your greatest aim.” It’s not enough to say, “One of the things I want in life is to be loving,” as if it’s in your top ten list.
Relationships must have priority in your life above everything else. Why?
Life without love is really worthless.
Paul makes this point: “No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.”
Often we act as if relationships are something to be squeezed into our schedule. We talk about finding time for our children or making time for people in our lives. That gives the impression that relationships are just a part of our lives along with many other tasks. But God says relationships are what life is all about.
Four of the Ten Commandments deal with our relationship to God while the other six deal with our relationships with people. But all ten are about relationships! Later, Jesus summarized what matters most to God in two statements: love God and love people. He said, “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart. . . . This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neiqhbor as yourself.’ All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
After learning to love God (worship), learning to love others is the second purpose of your life.
Relationships, not achievements or the acquisition of things, are what matters most in life. So why do we allow our relationships to get the short end of the stick? When our schedules become overloaded, we start skimming relationally, cutting back on giving the time, energy, and attention that loving relationships require. What’s most important to God is displaced by what’s urgent.
Busyness is a great enemy of relationships. We become preoccupied with making a living, doing our work, paying bills, and accomplishing goals as if these tasks are the point of life. They are not. The point of life is learning to love---God and people. Life minus love equals zero.
Love will last forever. Another reason God tells us to make love our top priority is that it is eternal: “These three things continue forever: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love.”8Love leaves a legacy. How you treated other people, not your wealth or accomplishments, is the most enduring impact you can leave on earth. As Mother Teresa said, “It’s not what you do, but how much love you put into it that matters.” Love is the secret of a lasting heritage. I have been at the bedside of many people in their final moments, when they stand on the edge of eternity, and I have never heard anyone say, “Bring me my diplomas! I want to look at them one more time. Show me my awards, my medals, that gold watch I was given.” When life on earth is ending, people don’t surround themselves with objects. What we want around us is people---people we love and have relationships with.
In our final moments we all realize that relationships are what life is all about. Wisdom is learning that truth sooner rather than later. Don’t wait until you’re on your deathbed to figure out that nothing matters more.
We will be evaluated on our love. The third reason to make learning to love the goal of your life is that it is what we will be evaluated on in eternity. One of the ways God measures spiritual maturity is by the quality of your relationships. In heaven God won’t say, “Tell me about your career, your bank account, and your hobbies.” Instead he will review how you treated other people, particularly those in need.9 Jesus said the way to love him is to love his family and care for their practical needs: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
When you transfer into eternity, you will leave everything else behind. All you’re taking with you is your character. That’s why the Bible says, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
Knowing this, I suggest that when you wake up every morning, you kneel by your bed, or sit on the edge of it, and pray this: “God whether I get anything else done today, I want to make sure that I spend time loving you and loving other people---because that’s what life is all about. I don’t want to waste this day.” Why should God give you another day if you’re going to waste it?
