Circuit Thoughts

I just came across an interesting quote by William Sloan Coffin. It goes like this; “God’s love doesn’t seek value, it creates it. It is not because we have value that we are loved, but because we are loved that we have value.”

There seems to be too many people who are willing to do so much to be loved. I have observed some bad relationships where one person is giving love so they can receive love. Too many people bank on the idea that to receive love you must give love.

But that is not the case. 1 John 4:10, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us…” Do you hear that? God did not say, “If you love me, I will then love you.” No, God just loves us.

Our modern society promotes a very warped understanding of love. We relate love to physical pleasure and to personal happiness. We have come to the mistaken belief that to be loved, we must first love. Even the church has this crazy idea that if we don’t love God first, then we are in trouble.

But that isn’t the way it works. God is Love; therefore, He loves first. He loves you and me, and started loving us before we were ever born. God started it. Our ability to love is the result of God loving us. For those of us with low self-esteem, God loves us, so that means we are worth loving.

And therein lies the thing. Christ didn’t come into the world to die for our sins on the off chance we might love him. He did it because He loves us. It is that simple. No matter who we are or where we are, we are loved. No matter what we have done, or said, we are loved.

Which is why you and I need to let people know this. We need to love our neighbors enough to tell them they are loved by God. Do you remember when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was? He responded with, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind”. Then he added another, “Love your neighbor as yourself”. (You can read this in Matthew 22:36-40) The point of the matter being, loving God and Loving Neighbor walk hand in hand.

We are already loved; God continues to show us that truth time and time again. For us to show love to God, means to love our neighbor. In fact, if you continue to read the 1 John passage, you will find that it is impossible to love God but hate your neighbor.

The reason is that we should be able to love what God has already loved. Besides, every neighbor is made in the image of God.

For followers of Christ, Loving God and Loving our Neighbor should be like breathing and eating. It should come naturally.

Just a thought.

Shalom my friends. See you in church.