“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love, does not know God, for God is love.”
(1 John4: 7-8) God’s “Being” is love, “agape love”; a love that is self-giving, selfless, unconditional and forever present!
Who is God? God is Love! Jesus Christ left you and me a “new commandment”, “love God as you have been loved by God” (John 13:34). To love as God loves means we must understand love as the Apostle Paul taught and modeled: Love is patient and kind; it is not envious, boastful arrogant or rude. Love is not irritable or resentful, and does not keep score (1 Corinthians 13:4-7). In Jesus Christ we are lifted above the dualistic thinking of the Enlightenment and Post Modernity, empowered to embrace, as Paul puts it, a “more excellent way”!
“Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” We love as we have been loved by God when we understand “love never ends”; and we cease to judge who is and isn’t worthy. Father Richard Rohr writes, “The only way I know how to love God and to teach you how to love God is to love what God loves. To love God means to love everything . . . no exceptions. Of course, that can only be done with divine love flowing through us.” (“Seeing with God’s Eyes”, August 17, 2016)
When we allow God’s “divine love” to flow through us,we are transformed and become transformative; we are empowered and are empowering; we claim our identity as a beloved child of God, and see others the same. I look forward to seeing you in Church; invite a friend, relative, acquaintance or neighbor to join you!
In Christ,
Pastor Doug