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Love

 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.  Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. (I Peter 4:8-9)

          Because God loved us, Jesus died so that our sins could be covered over by His love. We are forgiven because of love. In fact, love is impossible without forgiveness. So, back in the Garden of Eden when the serpent told Adam and Eve they would be “like the Most High”? They sinned with that goal in mind.

          Today, we still like the idea of being like the Most High – except we want to be like Him in all the ways that are not like Him. We want to stand in judgment, not love in a way that covers a multitude of sins. We want to fix things, but in a way that involves either no one paying the price or the other guy doing so. We want to be like God, in the same way that Satan is “like God.” And it’s not entirely our fault – we’ve been taught that God is like Satan’s representation of God.

          I’m not saying that our love for one another should remove all consequences of sin (at least for the sinner.) All I’m saying is that our love should be great enough to be bigger than the sin.

          The second topic of today’s passage is the offering of hospitality. It reminds me of the passages in Job in which Satan shows up in Heaven. Did you know Satan could show up in Heaven? That he could do so without being arrested, detained, beaten, or destroyed? God didn’t strike him with a lightning bolt. What He did was probably worse. He treated him like the rest of the angels. “Where have you been? What have you seen? Did you notice my servant Job?”

          How infuriating! Satan’s whole bit was the desire to be like the Most High. At the very least, he should be treated as public enemy number one. God should treat him like an enemy, like a threat of some sort, but “Where have you been? What have you seen? Did you notice my servant Job?” God was hospitable. There will come a day when judgments are meted out, but until that day, God seems to be wearing His cook’s apron, not His judge’s robes.

          That’s how we’re supposed to be. If someone comes to us, we’re to welcome them, treat them with hospitality. Leave the judgments and consequences to God. Our love is to be bigger than their sin.

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