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Summing Up And Moving On


And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. (I John 4:16-17)

 

“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. (John 15:18-19)

 

Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world (I John 2:15-16) 

          So, having completed a three-week rabbit trail, we return to where it began. If we living in love, we live in God. If we live in God, we live in love. I don’t want to say that living in love isn’t easy. I’m not sure that’s the right word. Living in love and not living in love may both be easy, like walking in or out of a house. In fact, changing between the two is so easy I suspect the door must be nearly automatic. On a daily basis, we slip through it and back, hardly noticing that we’ve done so. 
         If we fail to love God, we fail to love those around us. If we fail to love those around us, we fail to love God. It is our ability – our growing ability to love that gives us confidence before God. As we do better at loving the unlovable (and for some people, that may include God,) we become more like God. 
         Love may be easy (or perhaps not) but it is often not comfortable. John tells us this in his last phrase: in this world we are like him. The world does not love anyone who is not part of it. This is why, when people say, “Look at what (name that country) is doing,” our response should be, “But what does Scripture say?” Chances are better than not that the country is not loving God, and therefore, it is not loving its people as it should, no matter what we think based on this report or that. 
          Considering the material on which we’ve spent the last three weeks, I think all of us feel the need to cry out, “Lord, love where I cannot, be the love that I cannot be.”

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