The Circle of Love Is Everything

"As a physician who has been deeply privileged to share the most profound moments of people's lives, including their final moments, let me tell you a secret. People facing death don't think about what degrees they have earned, what positions they have held or how much wealth they have accumulated. At the end, what really matters (and is a good measure of a past life) is who you loved and who loved you. The circle of love is everything." Bernadine Healy, M.D.

Doctor Healy's observation, if not profound, is at least enlightening. It enlightens us to the fact that God's truth can be observed in life experiences. I have for sometime felt that those who were facing imminent death would shed their ties to this world, their perception of what is important changes drastically. One would be hard pressed to convince someone who can feel their life force waning from their body that they need to put money in an IRA. On the other hand, those among us who are in their fifties or so and expect a future here on earth, feel an ominous foreboding if they fail to 'sock a little away' for retirement.

John teaches us in his first epistle that who we love and who loves us is vitally important. "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4:8-10).

God is love and has manifested that love by sending His Son into the world to save mankind. Who loves us? God, that's who!

Knowing that God loves us is not enough, we must love! "We love Him because He first loved us. If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also." (1 John 4:19-21). Who do we love? God and the brethren, that's who!

John also deals with love in the negative. "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life- is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever." (1 John 2:15-17).

How sad it is to come to the final moments of one's life only to realize they have loved the wrong things. And to realize that because they have loved the wrong things, hope of a wonderful eternity has passed.

God has given you and me a most precious gift. The gift is a life to be lived. What we do with that gift has eternal consequences. As the doctor observed, when we have used up God's gift, nothing will matter except who we have loved and who has loved us. Do you love God? Does God love you?

MR