Love Is the Visible Work of God

My First paragraph with bold text.

Day 13  Love is the Visible Work of God 

1 John 4:7-12, MSG  “My beloved friends, let us continue to love each other since love comes from God. Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God. The person who refuses to love doesn’t know the first thing about God, because God is love—so you can’t know him if you don’t love. This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they’ve done to our relationship with God. My dear, dear friends, if God loved us like this, we certainly ought to love each other. No one has seen God, ever. But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and his love becomes complete in us—perfect love!” 

   America is harvesting a bumper crop of hate this year. We seem to have decided as a society that fear, disrespect and outright violence is acceptable. As followers of Christ, how are we to respond in the face of overwhelming hate? With love, of course. Why? Because love is the essence of God. God is Love. 

Because it’s easy? Far from it. It is not what we are capable of, but what God is capable of through us. “God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him.” 

1 John tells us that God sent Jesus to clear away the damage our sins have done to our relationship with God. Because God is love, we honor God by loving others. Not just when they “deserve” our love. It’s when we feel they least deserve our love is precisely when we need to extend love.   

Because it’s easy? No, because it’s hard and because it is the essence of God. 

Christ came as an act of love to restore us to God; to cover our short comings and the damage those short comings have done to our relationship with God. 

In the face of hate, do the most radical thing you can do, respond with love. Let’s turn this bumper crop of hate into a bumper crop of love! 

They will know we are Christians by our love. 

   Reflect: How can you remember to respond to hate with love? How can you remember to lead with love instead of hate? 

Pray: God, help us to respond to hate with love, not because we are able, but because we are capable with your help. Help us to love our neighbors without regard for their actions towards us. Help us to be love, as you are love. AMEN 

  Jack Wilburn  Trustee