Scripture: 1 John 4:7-21
Dear Church,
I love the book of 1 John because the message is profoundly simple: God is love, and if you are God’s children, you will be people of love.
This is what Christianity is all about! In his marvelous little book The Love That Is God, Frederick Christian Bauerschmidt summarizes the basics of Christianity this way:
God is love.
The love that is God is crucified love.
We are called to friendship with the risen Jesus.
We cannot love God if we do not love each other.
We live our love out from the community created by the Spirit.
That fourth line is often the hardest.
We get tripped up by our busyness, by our tendency to narrow the scope of people we are called to love, by our fear, and by misunderstanding what it means to love.
But the message of 1 John is liberating: God has given us everything we need be people of love. The Spirit is with us, dissolving our fears and empowering us for a life of sacrificial love.
I hope you will participate in worship this Sunday at 10am in the sanctuary or on the livestream as we continue our series First, Love and remember who we are as people of love.
Grace and peace,
Wes Vander Lugt
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