21 August 2015 - love above all

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart,
with all your soul, and with all your mind.
This is the greatest and the first commandment.
The second is like it:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

It's all about love. We know what love is because he shows us. "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers" (cf. Joh. 3:16). He first loves us even while we are acting as enemies toward him (cf. Rom. 5:8). Love is the fulfillment of the law. Jesus summarizes the whole of the law in two commandments of love. We are to love God and we are to love one another. It's all possible because he loves us first. He shows us love. He helps us to know what it is. He fills us with his own Spirit to make his love present in us. "Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us" (cf. 1 Joh. 3:24).

If we try and do it on our own it is a constant struggle. We are not compelling witnesses. People see us and don't want what we have because we're basically empty. But when we let God fill us with his love by his Spirit we become compelling. Other people begin to notice the light within us of which we ourselves are not the source. The begin to want what we have. This must be the experience of Ruth with Naomi.

Naomi said, “See now! 
Your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and her god.
Go back after your sister-in-law!”
But Ruth said, “Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you!
For wherever you go, I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge,
your people shall be my people, and your God my God.”

Wouldn't it be great to live such a compelling life? It is possible! All we need to do is to rely on the Holy Spirit of God! He'll do the rest!

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD, his God,
Who made heaven and earth,
the sea and all that is in them.