Love

I chose the word “love” this week out of my envelope of words…4 letters with a scope of meaning that seems limitless.  In Bible Study yesterday we were reflecting on a passage from Ephesians which uses the beautiful phrase, “with the eyes of your heart be enlightened” In pondering those words it seems they lead directly to love – when we see with our heart, we are moved and love is expressed.

On Sunday, the eyes of our hearts were enlightened when we heard 3 teenagers and 1 adult speak of their own faith journey.  It moved everyone in the sanctuary – it was powerful testimony.  One young woman said, 

“Jesus was sent here to teach us all how to live in God’s way, the way he intended us all to live.  Jesus came first of all to tell the people about God and how they were never alone.  He also came as a teacher.  He taught various people about how to be kind to each other and the basic lesson that we are all human.  He didn’t discriminate about skin colour, or if you were rich or poor because it didn’t matter to him and it shouldn’t matter to us.  “Love your neighbour as yourself…” if we could all do that think of how peaceful this world would be.”

At the core of all that was shared, was a deep sense that the absolute most important aspect of our faith in Jesus Christ was a realization that God, in Jesus, came to show us how to model the love that is God’s deepest desire and the most important aspect of a church community is to be a safe place of welcome, acceptance and support…”All are welcome” and “all” means “all.”

Love is an action far more than a feeling.  Love is a choice and often not easy.  I am seeing love lived out in so many ways, as parents willingly sacrifice for their children, as friends make space in busy lives to help someone with drives to cancer treatments, as people volunteer countless hours for our production of dinner theater. When the eyes of our heart are enlightened we are able to see love more clearly.  May this be a week where you notice all the places love is alive and active and may you see opportunities to share God’s love with others for, as the very old camp song goes, 

“They will know we are Christians

 by our love, by our love, 

they will know we are Christians by our love.”