Well of Love

Amy Oden September 2025

Church of the Resurrection Insights Blog

1 John 2:4-6

Ultimately, love is the supreme commandment (Matthew 22: 37-40). Every other teaching serves this one: love. It doesn’t matter how righteous or doctrinally pure or good we are if we do not love. Today’s passage from 1 John says it pretty harshly – we are liars if we talk the talk but don’t walk the walk (1 John 2:4).

Deceptively simple, yet so hard to live.  I used to think that if I was a good person, I’d be able to love others.  And if I can’t love others, then I must be a bad person.  Why can’t I just dig down deep and summon love somehow for that person who seems so self-important, dismissive of others, interrupts when others are speaking, thinks they are always right … my list of irritants could go on!

What I’ve noticed over the years of walking with Jesus is that, when it comes to those hard-to-love folks I cannot, on my own, summon love out of nothing.  I can’t create love.

But I can tap into that well of love God has for me and for all creation. I can allow myself to sink into the love God has for that person. I can let God do the heavy lifting until my own love matures into fruit. 

I don’t want to be a liar, a hypocrite who talks a good game about love but cannot walk in the way of love, especially when it gets hard. May God’s love buoy me, carry me as I grow in love for those I find hard to love. May I allow God’s love to be perfected (made whole) in me today (1 John 2:5).