16 June 2015 - first to the lord

So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

How is he perfect? In every way! He does all things well (cf. Mar. 7:37). But in this case Jesus has a specific perfection in view.

But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you

Our love is meant to be something more than merchant love. It is meant to be more than quid pro quo, this for that. The point of love is not what we get but what we give. After all, this is how God loves us. "God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (cf. Rom. 5:8).

This sort of love enables us to give with abundance of joy. Even "profound poverty" can overflow in a wealth of generosity. There is a trick to this, a trick which the Macedonians know, and which Paul recommends to the Corinthians. They don't give mainly for Paul's sake. Even Jerusalem isn't the primary object of their generosity. They "gave themselves first to the Lord and to us through the will of God".

When our focus is different, not first to the Lord, we tend to worry about the limits of our own resources. We tend to worry about whether or not people are our enemies. Their value to us begins to determine how much we are willing to give them. This is what happens when we try to initiate from the resources we have within ourselves. Instead, our love is meant to be a response to "the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ" who become poor for us even though he was rich so that by his poverty we might become rich.

This sort of love is what it means to be children of the Father. It is, we might say, the genetic code that Jesus bears from the Father. We are called to love with this same love "that you may be children of your heavenly Father". But again, it is not something which we initiate. The love which makes us daughters and sons of God is a gift given by the Father. It is the Holy Spirit, "For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" (cf. Rom 8:15).

We are given the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit within us is the one who responds to the gracious act of Jesus. He responds by unleashing the power of God within our own hearts. This power enables us to offer all that we are "first to the Lord". When we love in this way we are able to love without limits.

Praise the LORD, my soul!
I will praise the LORD all my life;
I will sing praise to my God while I live.