Happy 51st anniversary to our beloved Bishop and Co-Pastor! I know their anniversary is later this month. So, I’m a little early, but what a marvelous and graceful model they are for married couples everywhere! And what an inspiring example of the power of enduring love!
What if all of us, each one of us, made love our center, the very core of our being? Everyone would take an interest in the well-being of others. There would be no self-aggrandizing. Whom might we see that we are unable to see because we are too busy—busy trying to impress those who are worthy of our attention?
“For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (1 John 3:11 KJV).
Enduring Love!
LOVE! That’s it! The total essence of the Jesus story is love! “For God so loved [us] that He gave [us Jesus]” (Jn. 3:16). When Jesus was asked to identify the greatest commandment, He responded by pointing the questioner to the love commandments which instruct us to love God and to love each other. In John Chapter 15, Jesus elevates love above all else. In speaking to the disciples who were with Him at the time and to all who would come later including us, He declared, “This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (Vs. 12-13).
As His disciples, we are His ambassadors on the earth. If we would be ambassadors for Christ, the total essence of our story must also be love. Then and only then are we fit to be His ambassadors. It is not our role to judge or condemn anyone. It is our responsibility to present Christ to them—the Christ, who is the personification of love. As Christ’s ambassadors, we are able, through eyes of love, to facilitate the reconciling of people back to God, helping them to move off the devil’s agenda and into fellowship with God. In effect, rescuing others from the one who comes to “steal, kill, and destroy” and restoring them to the One who came that “they might have life and have it more abundantly” (Jn. 10:10).
We are charged then to LOVE.
“Let love be without hypocrisy.” (Romans 12:9a NKJV)
“Overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21b KJV)
“Value others above yourselves.” (Philippians 2:3b NIV)
“Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” (1 John 4:7b NIV) To excel in love!
Focus Quote: “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first!”
–Revelation 2:4 NLT
