"40 Days of Love" in American Sign LanguageSample

The Best Use of Your Life is Love
By Rick Warren

“Love is more important than anything else. It is what ties everything completely together.” (Colossians 3:14 CEV)

Do you want to know how to best spend your life? Here it is: The best use of your life is love.

God says you need to make learning how to love your primary objective, your greatest ambition, and your life purpose. Why does he say that? There are four reasons why love is more important than anything else. Today we’re going to look at the first two.

1. Love validates your faith.

The reason why God wants you to learn to love is that he wants you to become like him. The Bible says in 1 John 4:20, “If we say we love God, but hate others, we are liars. For we cannot love God, whom we have not seen, if we do not love others, whom we have seen” (TEV). Love validates your faith. It proves you really are a child of God.

2. Love integrates your life.

There are a lot of things that you can make your dominant life principle. But you need something at the center of your life so strong that it won’t fall apart when the trials come — when the road ends, the emotional earthquakes hit, and the financial hurricanes stir. When all of the tribulations of life batter you, you better have something at the center of your life that will hold you together, or you’ll come apart.

The Bible says the only thing strong enough to do that is love — love for God and love for each other. When love becomes the center of your life, it brings everything else into focus.

Colossians 3:14 says, “Love is more important than anything else. It is what ties everything completely together” (CEV).

Talk It Over

What ambitions get in the way of making love your greatest ambition?

How can you make love the center of your life? How can it serve as a stronghold for you?

In what ways do others identify you as a child of God? Is love one of those ways?