The Power of Love

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread. Today's reading, titled The Power of Love, was written by Wyn Collier. Two octogenarians, one from Germany and the other from Denmark, were an unlikely couple. They had each enjoyed 60 years of marriage before being widowed. Though living only 15 minutes apart, their homes were in separate countries. Still, they fell in love, regularly cooking meals and spending time together.

Sadly, in 2020, due to the coronavirus, the Danish government closed the border crossing. Undeterred, every day at 3 p.m., the two met at the border on a quiet country lane and seated on their respective sides, shared a picnic. We're here because of love, the man explained. Their love was stronger than borders, more powerful than a pandemic. The Song of Songs offers an impressive display of love's invincible power. Love is as strong as death, Solomon insisted.

None of us escapes death. It arrives with a steely finality we can't break. And yet love, the writer said, is every bit as strong. What's more, love burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame.

Have you ever watched a fire exploding in feverish rage? Love, like fire, is impossible to contain. Many waters cannot quench love.

Not even a raging river can sweep love away. Human love, whenever it's selfless and true, offers reflections of these characteristics. However, only God's love offers such potency, such limitless depths, such tenacious power.

And here's the stunner. God loves each of us with this unquenchable love. Now let's hear some Old Testament poetry together. This is today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading. It's taken from the Song of Songs, chapter 8, verses 6 through 7. Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm, for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot sweep it away.

If one were to give all the wealth of one's house for love, it would be utterly scorned. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you for lavishing us with your deep and powerful love, a love that is so selfless that you allowed yourself to take the penalty of our sin in order to release us from the death grip it had on us and to free us to live in true freedom. May our lives be an outpouring of your love on the world that is still bound by sin and needs your freedom. Jesus, it's in your name that we pray. Amen.