A few weeks ago I was sitting in a fast food restaurant munching on a sandwich when I heard a song from days gone by.

“What the World Needs Now….is love, sweet love …that’s the only thing that there’s just too little of….”

Over and over it played. I had not heard that song for a long time. As I sat there thinking about the lyrics, I felt the song was written for the times we are living in right now. In this day and time there are so many phony masks that have the word “love” imprinted on them! The name of Love is everywhere! The true meaning of what it means to really love like Jesus did can be lost in our fast paced lives. If we allow ourselves to be swept up into constant activities, running here and there, overloading and overstressing our systems with stimuli as a lifestyle, even doing “good things”…we can miss opportunities to simply know the love of Christ at a deep level.

It is easy in today’s world to simply become too Busy. Legs are moving, eyes are darting, pens are dashing “profound statements” at breakneck speed. Accolades are sought! Mountains need climbing! Goals and Time to accomplish them are the utmost!

I remember the scripture from the “Song of Solomon” chapter 2.

“Rise up my love, my fair one and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land…..Arise my love, my fair one and COME AWAY.” (Song 2:11-13)

There is something about loving someone that makes us want to go away with them and be alone! No one understood this better than Jesus when he spent time alone away from the eyes and ears of men just to be with His Father! It’s all about real love. It’s all about spending quality and intimate time with the One you love.

Lately, I have noticed that I seem to be doing many things FOR JESUS…FOR MY CHURCH, FOR OTHERS…and these things seem to be increasing! There is nothing of itself wrong with doing these things for others, far from it! We are taught to do “good works” by the Word of God. But what I have been sensing is that these good works can turn quickly into a whirlwind of activities that the enemy of our souls can use to drain us physically, emotionally and mentally and cause us to become exhausted and to grown weary in well doing!

II Thessalonians 3:13 says “But brethren, do not grow weary in well doing.”

I believe that is a warning to us all!

We are not to be idle but we are also not to overwork, over exercise, or overuse any part of our bodies! Our bodies are like houses ! We won’t have them forever! They are temporary. Our souls are eternal! We are just using these bodies and if we are not good stewards of them we can wreck them just like we can wreck a car through recklessness and carelessness!

Taking care of our bodies, minds and spirits by realizing what we need and having the discernment to make sure we get what we need…is wisdom from God! After all, God says that WE (our very bodies!) are His Holy Temple!!

II Corinthians 6:16 says “ For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them and walk in them and I will be their God and they shall be my people!” It is extremely important how we take care of our human bodies. It is part of loving God because He is our Creator!

We can become so caught up in the THINGS OF GOD….that we can literally bypass GOD!…Time with Him, intimacy with Him, pouring our hearts out to Him….The clock has only so many seconds on it per day! How many of those can we give to Him?

Does anyone need their soul restored today?
Does anyone need healing emotionally?
Does anyone need to learn how to love more?
Does anyone out there have the same human needs that I have?

Jesus is the Way. There is no other Way. There might be other “fix its” that come along . There are literally thousands and thousands of counselors, medicines, movies, games, and “learning experiences” available out there for us all.

But there is only one WAY to peace.
Time with God. Intimacy. Sharing. KNOWING HIM.

Paul said these words: “I count everything as loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I might win Christ and be found in Him ,not having mine own righteousness (of the law) but that which is through the Faith of Christ ,the righteousness which is of God by faith…..that I might KNOW HIM and the power of His Resurrection, …..” (Phillipians 3:8-9)

Knowing Christ Jesus takes time. It takes shoving other things out the door. It takes decisiveness and decision making to afford that time when other things are pressing in .

In America we are goal and time oriented! God is people oriented. We like accomplishments. God likes relationships.

He has to mold us and form us. He has to “renew a right spirit within us”! He sometimes does this by bringing us into proper perspective through discipline. That discipline is not always pleasant or easy, but in the end we are taught that “without Jesus we can do nothing!”( John 15).

Even our faith works by LOVE! The accomplishments of faith in action are actually borne on the Wings of Love!! It is the LOVE behind our actions that causes faith to WORK!!! Galatians 5:6 “FAITH WORKS BY LOVE.”

Most of us are familiar with the “love chapter”.. I Corinthians 13…but it never hurts to take a second, longer look at those words!

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal… ….love suffers long and is kind, love envies not, love is not puffed up… love bears ALL THINGS, endures ALL THINGS, believes ALL THINGS, hopes ALL THINGS. LOVE NEVER FAILS.” I have to say that again: LOVE NEVER FAILS.

Everything else will fail at one time or another in this life! The lyrics of the song I was listening to were straight from God’s heart! What the world needs now is Love, Sweet Love! The world has received that Love in the form of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The world has failed to recognize this fact to a great degree.

God is the Author of Love. He KNOWS US! He knows how much we NEED LOVE! He is THERE for us each one! He is able to fill us to overflowing with His Holy Spirit, with Refreshing, with Healing. He is able to deeply satisfy our every longing!

In my entire life, I have had many failures, many heartbreaks. I’ve also had some Awesome Joys and wonderful times! But the one constant that stands out above every life experience I’ve known since I found Jesus Christ is that no matter where I am or what I’m going through, good or bad….He desires to fill me afresh with HIS LOVE!!!

He desires that I would make myself available to times of intimacy with Him, the Living God, for my own sake, because I NEED His TOUCH every day!

Remember the old hymn: I NEED THEE , OH I NEED THEE!
How true it is!! What the World needs now is Love, Sweet Love!
His Name is Jesus and He is just waiting to give it!!!

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I pray you touch every heart who reads this month’s Healing Word ! I pray you would bring healing to schedules and overloaded minds! I pray God, you would manifest yourself to us all in deeper ways as we acknowledge and admit the depth of our need for you! Fill us, Lord, once again, with the knowledge of YOUR LOVE for us and keep us Lord in the simplicity that is Christ Jesus. Amen.

Article is copyrighted by Sondra Stallman.
May not reprint without permission from author.