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Saturday 14 July 2018

"All are Worthy of LOVE "




                    When did you first learn about or experience acceptance and love?  

July 15, 2018    1 John 4: 7-14         John 14: 21-24                     
The love of Christ is the central element of Christian belief and its theology, but may I suggest that “This Love” cannot be considered exclusive to Christianity.   The love of Christ refers both to the love Jesus has for all people regardless of their sexual orientation, race, color or religion, and the love Christians hold in their hearts for Jesus who embodied the resurrected Christ.  Read about it in 1 John 4: 19.  This love only exists because from the very beginning God in Christ first loved us.   When we hear about this radical extraordinary non discriminating love, we may begin to feel poorly that our love for Christ is somehow inadequate.  Could it be that a lack of accepting his love for us often makes us feel inferior, jealous or unworthy?  The only love our human nature knows is conditional love.  We feel it, measure it, and we share it but we a sense its elusiveness, flipped one minute you have it the next minute its gone, why doesn’t it last?  What is missing here?   Let us try and look at Gods love as an all-encompassing circle dance, what goes around comes around.  To make it complete we must be able to truly feel, see and measure the love that first came to us because it was God who first loved us.  God send out a love that was cosmic in proportion.  This love is so radical most cannot comprehend it because it is totally free of the law and is without conditions.  It does not discriminate and it cannot be earned.  Human logic cannot comprehend it.  The difficulty that occurs is that if I have not accepted and taken in this radical love into my own life,  how then can I mirror for others to see.  I cannot show you something I personally do not know or have for myself.  In fact the only love many of us can share or mirror is our human love that is a one way love. You know the kind of love I mean, it is love with conditions and often the conditions are unspoken.    Often there is a blockage, and it usually is this:  I do not believe that all Gods children are worthy of this radical love.  The moment I exclude someone I make that belief part of my reality.  This thinking is contrary to Jesus’ love for us.  Many of us side with the eldest son in the prodigal story.  This wayward son was not worthy nor did nothing to deserve the Fathers love.   but what he believed brought jealousy, and anger to his reality.    
  
The theme of God’s love is the key element within the Gospel of John.  In his Gospel, John uses the metaphor of the Good Shepherd to symbolize the sacrifice of Jesus based on His love and obedience to his Fathers will.  John tells us that we are to show our love for Christ by following in his teachings.  John 14:23: Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.   And in 1 John 4: 19 we hear:  "We love, because He first loved us", here John expresses a mirroring of Christ's own love.  Towards the end of the Last Supper, Jesus gives his disciples this commandment: "Love one another, as I have loved you ... John 15: 12.
How can we do that if we do not believe He Loves us without conditions?  Jesus goes on to say in John 13: 35.   "By this shall all men { and my I add women} know that you are my disciples”.  The most often missed point here is that these Disciples of Christ are not bound by any known religious affiliation at that time.   They were referred to as “People of the Way” The words Christian or Christianity did not yet exist.     Does that surprise you? If that were the case then, why should it not be the same today?  We do not profess Christianity as Lord, we profess Christ as Lord of "ALL", or at least some of us do.  

The love of Christ is also expressed in the Letters of Paul.  The basic theme of Ephesians is that of God the Father initiating the work of salvation through Christ.  Jesus willingly sacrifices himself based on this radical love and obedience to His Father will.  And some think it was our sin that nailed him to the cross.   Have you ever considered that it was Love that kept him on the cross, not the nails in his hands and feet? 
Ephesians 3:17-19 tells that one of the necessities of knowing the love of Christ, is to follow his teachings, which again are not bound by religious affiliation, because His love teachings are universal and can be found hidden within the writings of many religions around the world.  In order to know His Love for us we must seek Him personally, to understand and to contemplate on his wisdom and knowledge.  Religious doctrine and dogma is not his way folks, that way has only divides us and create exclusive religious groups and denomination.   


Many prominent Christian figures have expounded on the love of Christ. Saint Augustine wrote that "the common love of truth unites people, the common love of Christ unites all who follow His way".   Saint Benedict instructed his monks to "prefer nothing to the love of Christ".   Saint Thomas Aquinas stated that although both Christ and God had the power to restrain those who killed Christ on Calvary, neither did, and it was due to a form of perfect love, the love of Christ.   We today might call this perfect love, love without conditions.  Saint Teresa of Avila considered perfect love to be love that imitated the love of Christ.    

May we as Christians begin to be more diligent in reflecting THE LOVE OF CHRIST within our lives never forgetting that Christs’ love is for everyone, Christian and Non-Christian alike.  





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