You have heard it said (may have said it yourself): “The Main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” For the Christ follower, at our core, the foundation on which all else is built, is “love”. Love of God, love of self, and love for those God loves. John, in his first letter writes: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them . . . because as God is, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:16b-17) This love becomes tangible in the world when we love as we have been loved by God through Christ Jesus. The “main thing” is God’s love for you and me, and how we mirror that love to others.
Father Richard Rohr writes, “It takes great inner freedom to be a follower of Jesus. His life is an option, a choice, a call, a vocation, and we are totally free to say yes or no or maybe. You don’t not have to do this to make God love you. That is already taken care of. You do it to love God back and to love what God loves and how God loves!” (Eager to Love, p. 23)
When we love God and love those God loves, it’s a self-surrender to the One in whose image and likeness I’m created; and I find an anointing to love and accept the unique “me”, which in turn empowers to love and accept the unique you. It is in this loving we find ourselves living in the eternal flow of abundant life Jesus came to give.
It is in knowing (experientially, as well as intellectually) of our “Belovedness” that we are moved to loving those God calls God’s Beloved. John puts it this way: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” In God’s love we find a “Oneing” with our creator, participants in the eternal flow of God’s love. Stay healthy, safe and blessed!
Through Christ,
Pastor Doug