Perfect Contradictions
Scripture: I John 14: 17-21
Love is perfect and
fearless. God loves us and we respond by
trying to love God back. The commandment
we have is that if we love God, we must love our brothers and sisters. Loving our neighbors isn’t something we
always do well on our own. We must be
honest with ourselves when this happens.
When we can’t find it in ourselves to love another, we can draw from the
wells of love that God provides for us.
We are willing to receive that great and wonderful love that God offers
to us. Are we greater than God that we
don’t have to extend love others the way that God has loved us and equipped us
to love others?
The truth is that we see a
lot of hate in the world today. We have
candidates running for political office and in the campaign process, their
insults and accusations toward one another have become so common that we come
to expect it. It grieves our spirit when
we see people acting intentionally cruel and hateful toward one another.
In the world, we can expect
to be criticized and condemned. In the
church we are called to the standard set by Christ. In Christ, we are called to share in his
sufferings and to love as he loved. We
don’t get to pick and choose who we love.
God loves all people. If we are
to abide in God, to claim to be Christian people we must love all people –
everybody!
Prayer: God of Justice and Love, Help the children of God to
love all people in spite of ethnicity, skin color, orientation, gender, class,
or any other thing that would never keep you from loving your children.
The Reverend Josefina Perez
No comments:
Post a Comment