Love One Another: Live Like That“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” ~1 John 4:7-12 Saying and doing are two different things. We can say we love someone but if our actions do not reflect that love we contradict ourselves. For example, God could have said He loved the world and left it at that. Instead God sent Jesus Christ, His Son to be a sacrifice for the whole world. It is in God’s action and Jesus’ life, death & resurrection that we see God’s love for the world. It is in our daily actions that we communicate what or who we truly love. How we spend our time and what we put on the calendar, demonstrates what we value. We show love to others when we show up for them. The time a friend calls needing an ear. Do we listen? The neighbor who needs assistance with yard work. Do we show up with a rake asking, “How can I help?” The person we encounter on the street facing systemic racism. Do we speak up for him/her? The Apostle John wrote in his first letter that the world will know God by how we love one another. Within the faith community this is seen in how we treat and accept each other. It is also seen in how we love non-believers. Do we judge a non-believer? Or do we build a friendship with them, listen to learn from them, hear about their life experiences and serve them humbly? Let us live like that. Let us love freely embodying God’s love for the whole world. Let us love when no one else will show up. Let us give it all we have. Let us live so that as people pass, they see the evidence that we’ve been changed by the Gospel. This life of love is a daily walk. Each morning we get up and choose to love unconditionally, without judgment. When we live like that, we point the world around us back to God alone and the world will come to know God. “Live Like That” by Sidewalk Prophets: ~Pastor Vicki Epper
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