Living in the Spirit

July 9, 2022

Scripture Reading: Luke 10:25-37

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’ –Luke 10:25-28

These words spill easily off the lips of most of us who were raised in a church. I wonder if we know what they mean. What does Jesus imply when he says, do this, and you will live. Some may read that as the promise of eternal life. We might think that if we love others, we will live in a society that protects one another. The Greek word, zaó, translated here as life means to experience God’s gift of life, emphatically, and in the Messianic sense, to enjoy real life, i. e. to have true life and worthy of the name — active, blessed, endless in the kingdom of God*. This life is not just something to look forward to in the future. It was gifted to us by God when he breathed the breath of life** into each of us.

What we do with the life we are given is the purpose of the above scripture. Life is not life if it does not answer the command to love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. For some reason, I fear, we have failed in understanding that each and all of God’s creations are loveable. As I compare the backgrounds of the young men who have been accused of recent mass shootings, I keep seeing people who do not love themselves. We can identify them at very young ages. We can teach people how to love themselves. We can teach children how to share their love rather than make fun of someone they do not understand. Before that can happen, we adults, need to learn the lesson too. Need to learn to love ourselves, want the very best for ourselves, and want the very best for all others. We must model love for all our children. The best role model I know for refining our ability to love is Jesus, the Christ. Now is a great time to read through the gospels and search out Jesus’s love in action.

Prayer: Lord, show us again how to love like you until we get it right. Amen.

*https://biblehub.com/greek/2198.htm

See Genesis 2:7

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 America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.