Thursday, November 7, 2024
Rev. Michael Curry reflects on the description of God’s expansive love found in the Bible.
Love is a firm commitment to act for the well-being of someone other than yourself. It can be personal or political, individual or communal, intimate or public. Love will not be segregated to the private, personal precincts of life. Love, as I read it in the Bible, is ubiquitous. It affects all aspects of life.…
An oft-quoted passage in the New Testament says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only son” [John 3:16]. The Greek word used by the New Testament writer for the word love is agape. And the Greek word used for world is kosmos, but what it really means is “everything”—“everything that is.” Kosmos is what the spiritual is talking about when it says of God, “He’s got the whole world in his hands.”
God so loved the world that he “gave.” God gave. God did not take. God gave. That’s agape. That’s love. And love such as that is the way to the heart of God, the heart of each other. It is the way to a new world that looks something more like God’s dream for us and all creation.
Curry upholds such love as a path of selfless action:
Love as an action is the only thing that has ever changed the world for the better. Love is Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi…. Love is a little girl in Pakistan named Malala Yousafzai standing up to armed men who said that girls shouldn’t be educated….
Love is a firefighter running into a burning building, risking his or her life for people he or she doesn’t even know. Love is that first responder hurtling toward an emergency, a catastrophe, a disaster. Love is someone protesting anything that hurts or harms the children of God. Jesus said it this way, hours before his crucifixion: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s own life for one’s friends” [John 15:13].
Love is a commitment to seek the good and to work for the good and welfare of others. It doesn’t stop at our front door or our neighborhood, our religion or race, or our state’s or your country’s border. This is one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth, as the hymn goes….
Where selfishness excludes, love makes room and includes. Where selfishness puts down, love lifts up. Where selfishness hurts and harms, love helps and heals. Where selfishness enslaves, love sets free and liberates.
The way of love will show us the right thing to do, every single time. It is moral and spiritual grounding—and a place of rest—amid the chaos that is often part of life. It’s how we stay decent in indecent times. Loving is not always easy, but like with muscles, we get stronger both with repetition and as the burden gets heavier. And it works.
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Sarah Young Jesus Calling
Worship Me in the beauty of holiness. All true beauty reflects some of who I AM. I am working My ways in you: the divine Artist creating loveliness within your being. My main work is to clear out debris and clutter, making room for My Spirit to take full possession. Collaborate with Me in this effort by being willing to let go of anything I choose to take away. I know what you need, and I have promised to provide all of that — abundantly!
Your sense of security must not rest in your possessions or in things going your way. I am training you to depend on Me alone, finding fulfillment in My Presence. This entails being satisfied with much or with little, accepting either as My will for the moment. Instead of grasping and controlling, you are learning to release and receive. Cultivate this receptive stance by trusting Me in every situation.
RELATED SCRIPTURE:
Psalm 29:2 (NIV)
2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.
Psalm 27:4 (NLT)
4 The one thing I ask of the Lord—
the thing I seek most—
is to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
delighting in the Lord’s perfections
and meditating in his Temple.
Additional insight regarding Psalm 27:4: By the “House of the Lord” and “his Temple,” David could be referring to the Tabernacle in Gibeon, to the sanctuary he has built to house the Ark of the Covenant, or to the Temple that his son Solomon was to build. David probably had the Temple in mind because he had made plans for it in 1st Chronicles 22. David may also have used the word Temple to refer to the presence of the Lord. David’s greatest desire was to live in God’s presence each day of his life. Sadly, this is not the greatest desire of many who claim to be believers. What do you desire the most? Do you look forward to being in the presence of the Lord?
