Proverbs 3:1-18 and 1 John 3:1-15.

I don’t think I am supposed to have favourite bible verses….  But today’s passage from 1 John contains words that I find so deeply evocative that I often remind myself of them when worries threaten to overwhelm.

‘See what great love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God’.

The very idea that I am a ‘child of God’ is one that provides such comfort and reassurance.  It seems John too is amazed at the manner of God’s love for us his children and wants us to pause to reflect on these words.  God could have looked down on the brokenness of humanity and simply devised a divine but detached plan for our salvation.  But instead, he wholeheartedly welcomes us into his family.  We are not merely called children of God we ARE children of God.

For me, this becomes a movement of love, receiving the love of God and learning to receive and love myself as someone made and held by God.  It is only by acknowledging how much we are loved, that we are able to love others and fulfil that great commandment from Deuteronomy,

‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.  You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength.’

This is as much a command, as an invitation into a life ordered by God and from the depth of that love, to love our neighbour as ourselves. 

And today’s passage echoes that invitation,

‘For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another’.

It is so very easy to focus on our Christian faith being one whose primary aim is to love others.  However, we cannot love another if we do not open ourselves to God’s love, to remember how loved and welcomed we are into his family.  In order to do this we have to offer ourselves compassion when we do not meet the standards we expect of ourselves.   We are not able to give the radical love asked of us in the Beatitudes if our minds are preoccupied with anxiety, fear and defensiveness.  We need to take time to pause and remind ourselves that we are already loved and we do not need to constantly strive to remain in God’s family.

It is in prayer that we come into relationship with God.  We remember that despite all our failings, in asking forgiveness that we are truly loved by God

Jesus reminds his disciples of one of the greatest revelations in John’s Gospel

‘As the father has loved me, so I have loved you abide in my love’.

The Trinitarian love, of God the creator, Jesus the redeemer and the Holy Spirit the sustainer is opened to us.  We are not loved conditionally, we are drawn into the eternity of the divine love.

‘Abide’ is used in today’s passage, in Greek the word means to remain, to stay, to dwell or to make one’s home within.  We are invited not just to believe in God but to  live our lives in love, to be welcomed as ‘children’ of God.  We are not asked to earn his love God, reaches out to us just as we are, with loving open arms . 

Todays’ society teaches us to strive harder, to achieve more and to do more.  We are constantly anxious that we need to be good enough or we will be rejected.  The writer of Proverbs tells us that through abiding in God’s love and keeping his commandments we will be offered peace and prosperity.  More directly we are asked to,

‘Let love and faithfulness never leave you’ and to ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart’.

We are invited into communion, to immerse ourselves and abide in this loving relationship with God.  Jesus did not compel the disciples to follow him by force or compulsion.  He walked beside them, taught them patiently and remained with them.  Their mistakes were not punished, they were not cast out for not understanding or needing reassurance.  We know that the disciples became faithful followers of God going out to spread the Gospel message across the world.  They abided in God’s love, through trials and hardship their faith did not waver.

So perhaps this week, instead of becoming preoccupied with all the things that we feel we have not done well enough and dwelling on the times we have let God down we need to remind ourselves of God’s love for us his children.  A love that flows out, surrounds and strengthens us, as creator, redeemer and sustainer of our lives.  Maybe our focus needs to shift away from endlessly seeking to earn God’s love and instead to quieten our minds and abide in the knowledge that God already holds us in love.