Lent February 25, 2015

Scripture Reading: Psalm 22:23-31 All the ends of the earth shall remember    and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations    shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord,    and he rules over the nations. —Psalm 22:27-28

My impression, drawn from the scriptures, is that God wants to be loved because we want to love God. We demonstrate our love for God, not only through worship, but also by following the path of caring for one another that God has set before us. We do justice, show mercy, and walk humbly with God. (Micah 6:8) We cannot legislate love and we cannot bully or terrorize people into loving. We have been given the freedom to choose to love.

Our culture has mystified love, making it something we think we fall into or out of. We have trivialized love, applying it, in many instances, to create a superlative form of the word “like”. We have sexualized love often ignoring the boarder scope of the love God has for us or the love we have for others that is like the love of siblings. I like M. Scott Peck’s simplified definition of love: wanting the very best for another.

Such is the love God calls us to choose for all who are made in God’s image. Practicing choosing to love reorders and reprioritizes our lives. It draws us to a center where God has been along.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for choosing to love us. Thank you for the freedom to choose to love you and to choose to love others. Strengthen me to love as you love and let my love always be to your glory and honor. Amen

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of American. Used by permission. All rights reserved.