I’m highlighting the most powerful verses for me today, from I John, chapter 4.
…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…
…
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!
…
…There is no room in love for fear. Well-formed love banishes fear. Since fear is crippling, a fearful life—fear of death, fear of judgment—is one not yet fully formed in love.
Read the whole chapter here. (various translations can be selected)
I’m wondering if we are getting this.
I’m wondering if I am.
It’s simple stuff, really. It’s the simple stuff that can trip us up best, I suppose.
If God and love are inseparable why do we pollute that with other ideas that make us unloving?
I write this during Lent and I am awaken to the sense that I should repent. (turn around or change direction)
This repenting stuff has to happen all the time if we are going to be more like God and more like love.
We get it wrong.
Just like getting off on the wrong highway exit. As soon as we realize it, we have to change direction.
We want to.
What better way to know you are on the right track than to see if fear is signaling you otherwise?
Off track, love is imperfect. Imperfect: meaning incomplete or malformed. And with incompleteness comes fear.
How liberating then is love.
How lovely.