Eastertide
April 19, 2016

Scripture Reading: Acts 11:1-18

And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’ When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’ –Acts 11:16-18

What is the full measure of God’s redemptive love? How do we recognize it? What is our role regarding it? Apparently if something is of God, at its core is love. No matter how holy something may seem or how obedient we may be to some tenet of faith or rule, if it is without love, it is without God. In I Corinthians 13:1, Paul calls it a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

Love is hard to define; we use it so loosely anymore. I like M. Scott Peck’s simplified definition that love is wanting the very best for another, but even that definitions begs the question what constitutes “tough” love? When, in a relationship with another, is it time to stop direct actions to save them when their need is to learn to love themselves so that they too want the very best for themselves? In the end we must accept that all love involves the presence of God. All love requires us to trust that God will nurture each loving relationship and will continue to work for the very best of all God’s children even when they do not seek it for themselves. As with the prodigal son, sometimes we must let another go, freeing them to find their way back to God and to us also.

What is our role in God’s redemptive love? We have been spared the hard task of judging others. Christ has taken on that task himself. Our only job is to love others even if they eat things that would never touch our lips and don’t follow the same set of rules by which we live.

Prayer: Lord, be present to me in all my relationships as we work together to perfect my ability to love the other even when I do not understand them. 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.