Rick Warren insists that love, how it is we love each other, is proof of our salvation. This is where I as a Lutheran Christian part company with this brother in Christ, a Southern Baptist. As if working towards love and contriving it in our lives could rescue us from the pit of self (sin) that rests at the core of each of us. Of course Rick bases what he says on a single verse, 1 John 3:14. But if you go back to the beginning of this particular chapter, this is what the author of 1 John has to say.
"See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are."
Our identity as God's children is grounded in his "election" of us...his insistent, ongoing, never-failing love for us. This is then the foundation of the work of our salvation, a thing accomplished not by our capacity to love God or each other...but the demonstration of GOD'S capacity to love us through a cross and empty tomb, DESPITE our inability to love God or each other.
When we choose war, God still chooses us.
When we choose hate, God still chooses us.
When we choose despair, God still chooses us.
When we choose our own self-centered needs over God and neighbor, God still chooses us.
This is the Gospel: "God chooses us. God will ALWAYS choose us, because God will unfailingly always love us."
As we live our lives not getting the beauty and power of this, God will still continue to give his life for us, to us, freely, abundantly, ALWAYS. As I say at the end of the communion liturgy...God's gifts are FREE!
And it's from these free gifts of grace...the freely given love and life of God for the very world that he created, that begins to altar and change our hearts and consciousness, sanctifying us by renewing our minds so that they will come to reflect the mind of Christ.
Which is another way of saying that as our lives increasingly flow from God's grace and life, we increasingly love each other as God loves us. So that even our capacity to love begins, and ends, in God, and not ourselves.
As St. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, "For by grace you have been save through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them."
Friend, you ARE God's workmanship, a creation of his grace and love. If today you find the capacity to love flowing out of you, it is because God created it in you. And you may, if you would like, pray for an even deeper connection with and expression of the love that formed you in the mind and heart of God, that the very expression of your life might manifest the glory of the God that made you.
Today, I pray for your formation in love. That you would know how deeply and powerfully the God revealed to us in Jesus loves you, and that you would know that love in your expression of it in the community that holds you.
Blessings through Christ, who has raised us all in his own resurrection.
Pastor Nathan
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2 comments:
I didn't think about what Rick was really saying about how we love each other is proof of our salvation. This almost seems like one of those ah-ha moments. When you think about it, God created us because he loves us and of course our creator would have us filled with the love, one because it was his love that did create us and why wouldn't he create us with that love! So it seems to me that we all have this love inside us and all we need is a little practice and a community of people who also love us and Christ's love will begin to pour out of us, and we all have this capacity!...the mission trip was a perfect example of this!
Bingo. I think you got it. But we need the body, the community of Jesus, the community of love, that manifests God's love to grow and fully express that love in each other. God pours his love through us, and as he does so, we learn the shape, feel, and reality of that love and become even better, deeper channels for it.
I felt it on the mission trip too. This is why those holy experiences of serving are so essential. They grow our capacity to be channels for the love of God that needs to flow into the world.
And the really COOOOOLLL thing is that God gives us the privilege of being those channels for him.
And for me at least, that illicits a huge, WOW!
Thanks for your comments and interaction. You rock!
PN
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